unexpectations

 what a weird day. it began with me walking in on mr smear brushing his teeth to angine de poitrine, gd's not a big fan but the two of us were loving it. i watched their davie504 response (mr smear hasn't seen it yet) and it's pretty freaking cool :)

i spent some time making a change to my AI harness that i was proud of, but discovered later already has a better cross-IDE solution. so 🤷‍♂️

we managed to get gd an appointment with the doctor, but we had to wait quite a while so we walked across to the mall and i got some work done. halfway through, i was having trouble concentrating so i went and bought myself a new headset, like i've been meaning to do for a while now.  ugreen studio pro, pretty good and not too expensive.

the appointment went alright, but it was good i was there. then we walked to the bigger clinic to try and arrange the prescribed ultrasound, but discovered that wasn't possible and gd didn't want to see the surgeon without it. unfortunately, we found out later that the earliest opportunity for an ultrasound is months away, and she just can't wait that long :/

aside from desperately needing a nap - i'm so grateful we have our bean bags - and an interesting conversation about our company hackathon which i unwittingly signed up to lead a team for - i managed to get a fair amount of work done.

after mr smear got home and ate something, i took him to the oral hygienist. overall, the trip was positive, minus narrowly averting an incident with his phone, and we were in good spirits and chatting away the whole time. right until we arrived home, when i saw his bike, parked across the walkway chained to itself, with his helmet over the handlebar.

i cannot believe my son a) is such a dumbass, and b) lied to my face when he came upstairs yesterday and i asked him about it. i mean, maybe i can believe it. maybe he is a little bit brain damaged 🤦‍♂️

anyway, the evening was nice, dinner was surprisingly delicious (another really good gluten free pasta), and we finally resumed watching highlander.

i did some more work after getting mr smear into bed, although it was mostly me squaring off against google's AI and losing dramatically (notebooklm fails). i guess i'm going to have to do the hackathon presentation myself...

painful realizations

sleep journal entry: a couple of hours of restlessness, but no breathing troubles and no physical discomfort. the nights are definitely getting warmer, though, and we had a mosquito in the room...

the back of my head's still a bit numb, which is worrying :/

i woke up from a dream in which i was with a bunch of people playing sports (frisbee and ball sports) around an open light rail station. my alarm woke me up, and i got out of bed, but my mind and body were still in sleep mode for quite a while after.

yesterday:

my biggest issue yesterday was motivation. i was finally feeling better, tired but better, and i got a few admin tasks squared away before sitting down to work. my primary task yesterday was reviewing an incident that i'd been told about a few weeks ago, and my work day was essentially reading through a month's worth of messages and documents, and the deeper i dove (dived?) the more tragic i understood the situation to be. by the end of the day i was literally shocked to discover that the incident, a fundamental break in a critical component of the business, and the efforts to get things back on track are still ongoing and being blocked by the company's lack of any meaningful ownership.

i'm heartbroken for these guys, they're good people and they're working hard, but they're trying to fight their way uphill in an avalanche. i don't see how this company survives if it doesn't have a dramatic shift in culture.

i want to set up a meeting with my client and manager and explain this to them, but i'm struggling to come up with a way of approaching this without causing offense or throwing anyone under the bus.

[sends message to manager, receives an immediate call and proceeds to discuss concerns and strategy for 35 minutes]

well, that went well - i was a bit clumsy in how i expressed my concerns at first, but we aligned relatively quickly and he appreciated my suggestions; i think the most crucial element is ensuring that all the developers are aligned with what ownership of a project entails, and unblocking unofficial ownership by "outsiders".

...

i had a good sync with my mentor in the afternoon, and a pleasant one later with my actual boss. gd laughed at me afterwards for the "awkward sweats", what evolutionary purpose that serves is utterly beyond me.

...

aside from taking a walk to do some shopping, that was pretty much my day. the evening, however, was a different story.

when mr smear came home, i asked him how his day went, and he assured me nothing interesting had happened. as i finished work, while i was processing the bizarre work situation i'd just finished reading about, i noticed that the father of one of his friends had sent me a voice message, that the two of them had had a massive fight that got violent.

we then spent the next couple of hours alternating between talking and yelling, trying to get the story out of him. he eventually admitted that he threw the first punch - making him the biggest asshole - but the most concerning thing is that he claims he doesn't remember the sequence of events at all. i said that he's either lying, or brain damaged, and he's now latched on to the latter and is trying to convince us that he's actually brain damaged 🤦‍♂️

we had another talk about it this morning, strategizing, and i hope he takes our advice. in the meanwhile, i've just sent a message to his friend's dad, who just responded positively. i really hope these kids manage to settle this in a mature way...

untethered

 sleep journal entry: after two hours of fitful sleep, i woke up with lower back and hip pain again and it took 45 minutes of stretching to calm down. this is the first time since i began supplementing with iron and magnesium, and i woke up feeling particularly poorly rested

meanwhile, gd woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning and her temper's on a hair-trigger.

all that aside, my niece is supposed to be giving birth in an hour's time at the latest, and we're all in a weird state of wanting to be supportive while certainly not being supportive of the fact that she's having another kid at all. i feel bad for both the siblings and the little one hasn't even come out yet.

...

yesterday was a day. i took mr smear to school, deciding once i got home that i have been being paranoid. i guess i'll wait for the homefront command to advise.

i did get a bit of work done in the morning, and i had a great (short) sync with my mentor. the afternoon, however, was a complete mess as far as work was concerned. i managed to get a whole lot of personal admin done, and i had a half hour meeting about the urban kibbutz idea that went really well, and certainly gave me some food for thought.

...

mr smear made some drama yesterday. when i dropped him off at school, it was with instructions to find out what work he needed to catch up and to bring home his workbooks. i called him after school to remind him. he arrived home without doing either of those things.

aside from the bad vibes, he's now under threat of losing weekend privileges if he doesn't shape up. i got him to write up what he has to do today in a temporary diary, including the instruction to start using his actual diary, and hopefully today will see him more functional.

after he did his chores, and a whole lot of music practice, he fired up human resource machine before i could stop him. technically i've made it homework, but practically speaking it's a video game, so i kinda screwed myself on that score :P

he spent a lot of time staring - his usual "i don't wanna think" mode - and there was a bit of tension, but i refused to give him the answer even as i gave him all the hints he needed to solve the problem. when he finally put 2 and 2 together (or 8 by 3, in this case), there was much rejoicing!

...

dinner was delicious, shower / bedtime went pretty smoothly, and i went to bed shortly after he did.

the twelve tasks of tuesday

sleep journal entry: technically a decaf coffee around 3pm. i still struggled with post-nasal drip and coughing for a lot of the night, but towards the morning i was able to sleep properly for a bit. now everything's starting to come out again...

earlier i had a dream in which i, along with a squad of sorts, entered deep into a terrorist's nest. one imbecile made enough noise to call attention to us, another (a kid i detested in primary school) did something even more dumb and suddenly we had to fight our way out. the battle was vicious and bloody (and involved shooting a lot of people in the eyes), and then i awoke.

...

i didn't get a lot of hours in yesterday, but i did end up with enough of a handle on the situation to be confident in how i move forward. the theme (or tantrum) of the day was due to ownership insanity - the devops who had seemed receptive to my initial proposal pushed back with the argument that there are two sources of truth, both valid even if contradictory, and that's on top of the situation in which there's no leadership coming from management and nobody knows what the situation should be.

it feels like the twelve tasks of asterix.

we weren't sure if we were picking mr smear up or not (he ended up going to his friend's place), but just before school ended his teacher called me for a long conversation - which needs a follow-up face-to-face meeting - with the fantastic starting point that they found all of mr smear's books! all but one, so my mother and i took a meandering walk through fascinating architecture to the bus, found the right book store, bought a copy of the missing book, sat down for a coffee, then walked home.

i didn't get much work done in the hour or so i was at home.

a potential impactful talk with my mom on the bus about my urban kibbutz idea.

one of the guys from my second team was looking through old stuff yesterday and sent me a picture of the gift i presented them during my farewell - it was such a fun memory!

mr smear met up with us at the mall after hanging out with his friend, we bought him a headband (his hair's been in his eyes) and he dutifully made sure it wasn't from adidas (i can't believe they're still operating in israel), then he sat down to eat his school lunch (?!) while my mom and i found a surprisingly good dollar store and picked up a bunch of things we'd been looking for.

mr smear wrote his name clearly in his new math book, dinner was great, and the evening was pleasant (including learning that the UAE has pulled out of OPEC).

i actually got a couple of practical things done before playing a bit of slay the spire 2, before hitting the hay.

brain fogging

 once again, as it gets later and i get ready to go to bed, my nose and throat situation begins to worsen... on the one hand, the antihistamines seem to be helping a bit. on the other, this really can't be just allergies.

i'm enjoying the excuse to accompany mr smear to and from school these days, even though it's awkward and getting more awkward by the day. are we at war? will the bombing resume? or should we be living our best lives?

limbo is uncomfortable.

i told my team what i've been thinking, and that i essentially needed to go back to the drawing board, and they were understanding. in spite of a fair number of distractions, i did manage to be productive today and i'm understanding considerably more than i did before. i'm not quite sure how to formally introduce AI tooling into what i'm doing - i may have to treat it as local harnessing only - but at least i'm feeling a little less lost.

a couple of months ago i began the process of setting up paybox for mr smear, and then a few weeks later got his account set up. since then it's been unclear whether he's actually earning interest, and today i got in touch with their support. after they initially lied to me, it became apparent that children's savings accounts do not, in fact, earn interest. so the whole exercise was one in futility, and i've now withdrawn all the money and we're going to have to find another option. and, just like every other thing we've tried, this has cost us; not just in cash, but i've now got two credit cards that need to be cancelled :/

assholes.

i snacked a lot today. today was all about snacks. even if some of the snacks were essentially just an extended lunch :P

the supplement routine is getting a bit ridiculous, though. it's complicated, and i've kinda given up on intermittent fasting the full 16 hours (though i guess i've been unofficially doing less for a while now) because it makes it even more so. i can't drink tea or coffee for an hour before or after taking my iron supplement (or eating something with a reasonable amount of iron in it), and i've got to take vitamin D in the morning with food, and magnesium at night with vitamin C (but not vitamin D), and i have to have my handful of walnuts (or pancakes, if i'm in time for gd's breakfasts) for omega 3, and not forget to regularly take b12.

after my mom and i picked mr smear up from school, we returned home and then walked across the highway to find the supermarket. it really is well-hidden! mr smear's whole thing for weeks has been hunting for lotus biscoff cookies, and i honestly wasn't expecting to find them there.

but find them there we did :)

on the way there, i'd charged him with paying attention to the route so that he can he gd find the place, to which he'd responded in a decidedly uncooperative manner. i warned him there'd "be a test", and on the way back i quizzed him, putting the lotus cookies on the line. he was not happy when i "failed" him and assured him there'd be no biscuits until i got a map, at which point i went home and my mother volunteered to accompany him to give him a hand.

which he apparently didn't need 🤦‍♂️

it really is all about motivation with this kid. he got home, drew me a map, took half a biscuit and promptly forgot about the ones i'd offered him as a prize, and then settled down to try and improve his previous solution in human resource machine.

that was effectively the end of my work day :P

while he didn't exactly post the correct solution himself, he did work through it really well, he made a real effort and stayed focused, made a bunch of modifications that he was pleased with himself about, and when i sat down with him at the end, he was clearly on board with me every step of the way.

this is exciting stuff ^_^

just before dinner his new teacher called me, and our chat was pleasant. funny, even, in a distressing kind of way, because the story she told me was that she'd loaned mr smear a book for the lesson, and he'd somehow managed to lose it by the end of class even though nobody had moved.

my child is certainly talented.

eventually, i got the full story over dinner and everything made sense, nothing had been lost.

dinner was really good, gd and my mom worked together to produce a lentil curry that even anti-lentils mr smear found edible.

bedtime was smooth, i finally read a bit more of the colour of magic to him (we're so close to the end!), and i've now spent a couple of hours doing nothing of value (including some spire slaying). now i'm taking my cough to bed and praying to get some rest.

shouldn't have told the universe my plans

 gd decided to clean the bathrooms and floors today. i tried to nap for a short while after breakfast, though i really didn't get much actual rest, and then our kibbutz cousin arrived for a visit. it was great to be able to host her for once! it's the first time in the twenty five years i've known her :P

just before she arrived, i registered a flurry of activity on our classroom whatsapp group, and we were horrified to learn that mr smear's homeroom teacher was riding her bicycle to the school earlier this week and was run over by a truck. she's been hospitalized and is in a serious condition, it doesn't look like she's going to be returning to the school this year 💔

we had a great late lunch ordered from jars and bowls, after which i jumped on a bus to pick mr smear up from school. we walked all the way to the light rail, hopped on the light rail, and only then did i learn that he'd left his locker unlocked again. so we turned right around at the next stop, went back into the school and i made him unpack his locker and search for his books while i searched above and in all the open lockers in the same row.

we didn't find anything.

we then took a quick walk to a bus stop to ride to the dentist to join gd, who was very nervous after her last visit. by the time we arrived she was almost done, and we she came out she was (rightly) very proud of herself for having told her dentist exactly how she was feeling and why; the dentist responded professionally, and gd says the experiences were night and day.

i wanted to pick up a decaf coffee on the way home (it would have been my third decaf today), but the guy at the coffee shop took way too long. we caught a bus home, and since we got back i've been struggling to stay awake so as not to have a hard time getting to sleep tonight.

so, braindead, i played slay the spire 2 until dinner, ate a great dinner with my family, showered, and have just tucked mr smear into bed. now it's time to go to bed myself.

breaking points

 i accompanied mr smear to school this morning, and on my way back accompanied him through a video-call hunt through his locker and classroom to demonstrate that he's legitimately lost his math equipment 🤦‍♂️

the first part of the day can be summarized by the half a minute of me, exasperated, yelling furious and impotently at the sky trying and failing to navigate my mother's iphone while trying to set up her esim. what a fucking nightmare UX, steve jobs must be spinning in his grave.

i went to the office today; there were two friendly dogs, and i think i'm getting paranoid because the moment i petted either of them i developed a crawling sensation across my skin. all my skin :/

aside from a team lunch with the boss - good talk, delicious lunch, i only had half the meal which was still too much food - my day was extremely frustrating as i continued to get hit with code ownership problems.

i took a break to pick up mr smear from school, and joined another employer meeting (it's poor timing to say the least) about adding more work hours to my week to get AWS certified...

eventually mr smear and i got home, he took my mom to the comics library while i was brought to boil by the sheer idiocy of my client company's current state. to the point where i wrote an "angry letter" to my client and my manager in which i essentially let rip, though i did pull my punches (professionally) and tried to be constructive.

the response was... not exactly comforting, but not negative. and the thing that pushed me to breaking point - a team gatekeeping its contact channel by demanding anyone with questions do a small quiz first - did provide a couple of helpful responses to my auto-rejected queries.

it was a long afternoon and evening, with very little progress. at least i was provided with something positive when i called my mom to find out how they were and learned that the two of them were just sitting in the comics library and reading quietly together :)

it's yom hazikaron, so we watched the masa ceremony on the big screen after dinner, which was moving as usual. in spite of us fighting with mr smear throughout to get him showered and his teeth brushed and him into bed.

i can't believe it's so late already. i'm going to try going to sleep.

the nights are getting warmer.

dust mouth

 firstly, omg i didn't realize it was my turn on crosswalk duty at the school this morning 🤦‍♂️

so that's a bit shit.

also a bit shit is our financial situation this month...

i dragged myself out of bed this morning, and immediately completed my first sleep journal entry. i found it a bit confusing at first, not just because of whether 12am and 12pm are midnight and noon or vice versa, but also because it's weird documenting the night's sleep and only afterwards documenting any naps from the rest of the day before the night's sleep. either way, it amuses me that the first night of sleep journaling and i actually slept pretty well.

it was a warm morning, first day of shorts and vests. i dropped mr smear off at school, returned home for an early breakfast, and then accompanied gd to the clinic. she got an appointment for our doctor, and so until then we burned our time waiting in line at the pharmacist. we picked up a coffee at "our" bakery, and then sat down with the doctor for a very unpleasant session.

gd was not happy, because the doctor doesn't agree with her assessment of something she's dealing with and so refused to prescribe medication for it. after much drama, gd's managed to get our old doctor in cape town to prescribe it in a way that my mother can pick it up... it's all very weird.

after that, we visited the nurses office to find out what happened to a sample gd delivered over a month ago, and learned that she'd never provided a "permission" (which nobody had told her about) so somebody had collected the sample and... made it disappear? so we'll be complaining about that on sunday, when she brings in a new sample.

jesus.

we returned home to drop off the groceries and then head out to the mall to pick up gd's new prescription specs, at which point we realized that we'd forgotten about mr smear and that school had come out already. i told him to meet us at the mall, which he dutifully did. he arrived just as gd's eyes were being re-tested because her very expensive specs were completely useless - she literally couldn't see anything - and entered the lego store which i chatted with my big sister.

during our chat, i learned that someone in a group i'm in is doing something related to the impact work i've been thinking a lot harder about since wednesday. i've just sent the guy an email, hopefully it'll lead to something.

after gd came out, we went downstairs and had a delicious hummus lunch, then gd failed to pick up another pharmacy prescription (part of the doctor drama) and we headed home, stepping outside into a massive, choking dust storm.

i read a little bit of the the colour of magic graphic novel while listening to tool before crashing into a semi-conscious nap for an hour, then made myself a coffee, used the massage tool on my neck, and then settled down at my computer to try and do something productive, even though my brain's offline, while i listen to mr smear humming to himself and appearing to make enough progress on his homework that he might actually be done before the sunset deadline.

i don't know if i'm going to get anything productive done.

a tale of two incidents

 yesterday:

i did sleep, but only briefly, waking up an hour or so before our alarms to jump right back into AI cat wrangling. because my brain was on fire imagining all the cat wrangling i wanted to do.

so i began my day putting together a PR for my boss (not my client) which basically said "this is how it's done", and i was relieved to find it merged by this morning, so he obviously wasn't too offended :P

then i rushed off to the 24/7 to pick up mishloach manot for mr smear to take to school, and afterwards gd and i headed to the dentist for the first part of her two-part root canal, which i had to be there for because her dentist doesn't understand a word of english (or french).

[goddamn i love chocolate-covered pecans]

i dropped her off at home and continued on to the office, where i was completely manic and infected a data engineer and my client with my enthusiastic idea for an AI cat-wrangling IDE extension.

and then i ran a test that my cat-wrangling had produced, confident that it was ready and that i'd had good results from the dry runs.

...

i was pretty bored while waiting for missing user permissions to complete the tests we were running in production, so i took care of some other stuff while i waited.

while i was making myself a cup of coffee, an unknown employee began interrogating me as to why he didn't see me at the company purim party that i didn't go to. he obviously thought he was being funny, but at no point did he get the hint that it would be wise to drop it, and in front of HR staff brought it to a point where had i been so inclined, that could easily have earned him a warning for harassment.

then i was brought into a call with my client team for an incident i knew nothing about and had nothing to do with - let's call it incident B - only to be informed, as i was explaining to them that my coffee wasn't working yet, that it wasn't an issue for us.

at that point i realized that i was falling apart, so i finished my coffee and left for home.

on the way home i tried to pick up a frying pan from kikar ha'medina, but i couldn't find what i was looking for, all the while struggling to get hold of mr smear and then threatening him to get his ass home to assist me on a mission to dizengoff.

...

and then i got home, and learned that the test i'd run earlier in the day had led to an incident.

let's call it incident A.

it took me about ten minutes to figure out what was happening, and another five to realize it was my fault. another two minutes to decide how to fix it, at which point i saw that one of my teammates had already pushed a fix and i'd been typing into silence for five minutes.

over the next twenty minutes i was in contact with my teammate but had received nothing from our client team (who were presumed to be dealing with the incident), and nothing seemed to be happening so i rushed out with mr smear and a washing basket that needed returning to catch a bus to the center.

we were halfway there when my phone started buzzing again, and i'd left my computer at home 🤦‍♂️

the bus was packed, with non-compliant riders arguing with the conductors, and a stop too early i jumped off with mr smear and we raced through the crowded sidewalks, scrambled down to the store, where i had trouble finding a frying pan, eventually giving up and taking an expensive induction one.

we rushed through the center to catch another bus home, and when we returned it was to discover, to my absolute horror, that i'd taken our production services down completely by running a test that i had literally forgotten i hadn't reviewed yet.

i cannot believe i did something so utterly irresponsible, i was mortified and humiliated to post the list of things that had been unnecessarily affected, a danger that i would easily have spotted had i checked it beforehand.

while i scrambled to figure out what was happening - i was in a flat panic, and had no idea where to look for monitors or logs* - my bulgarian teammates were quietly working with AI chewing gum and duct-tape and getting things back online.

* in retrospect, nobody does. and there isn't a lot of monitoring or logging going on to begin with...

all i had to offer were my apologies and volunteering to write up the RCA.

i continued freaking out until my mentor called me (i'd messaged him), and he was very reassuring ("if somebody had lost their life, maybe i wouldn't have called you"). still very shaken, i went to bed early knowing that no good was going to come of me getting less sleep.

today:

surprisingly, i did get some rest.

mr smear gave us some trouble this morning - he's been doing the slow morning thing since we moved, and he's been talking back whenever he gets in trouble - but by the time he had to go to school we were all in a better place.

except for gd, who was pissed off at the new frying pan because it's not as non-stick as it says.

(alanis morissette) ironically, the technician for the stove was due to come this morning and the element was heating up fully. fortunately, they called to tell us he'd been delayed and so we rescheduled for monday, which gives us a chance to test if it's really working or not.

the appraiser for the household insurance came back, an elderly man (a biker, i should say) who was impressively professional and efficient.

finally, the technician from the internet company arrived to sort out internet in our in-home bomb-shelter (our bedroom).

it took a long time. it took a lot of assistance from us. at one point he left the apartment, and then returned but forgot to take his shoes off.

he took so long, that i had to stop following him around to join my morning post-incident meeting with my teammates, which was really important because i knew i had to be able to discuss my disastrous fuck-up while looking them in the eyes.

by the time he was done, i was extremely frustrated. firstly, because the wiring isn't what i thought he was going to install, it's simply a single, very long ethernet cable from one end of the apartment to the other, instead of two wall jacks. secondly, because the outlet in the bedroom doesn't fit properly, so it looks terrible and it was squashing the cable he'd just installed, and i had to explain this to him. thirdly, because as relieved as i am that the network appliance in our bedroom is now working well, the speeds we're getting are inconsistent and surprisingly low. finally, because goddamnit when i tell you you're damaging both my screwdriver and the screw by using the wrong bit, fucking stop.

jesus h. christ.

anyway, so gd and i washed the floor, and there's internet in the bedroom, and on that note i left for the office. it was lunch time already, so i had to skip lunch. on the way i caught up with my mother who'd just had an interesting conversation with the new head of the jewish agency in south africa.

i hope something positive comes out of it.

the first half hour at work was fighting with IT network issues.

the next two hours were a complete mess; trying to understand the impact of incident A as a step towards getting started on the RCA, strategizing with a data engineer, and, amongst other stuff, being dragged back into incident B.

i never did get started on that RCA - i spent five hours on incident B, and was somehow assigned to lead a task force and only walked out of the office a little before 9pm.

not only did i bear witness to a member of my client team - the only guy who legitimately knows what he's doing - threatening to quit, and being mollified by the team lead, but at every step of the way i learned more about the system architecture and was stunned by the absurdity of it all. it's shit, deep shit, all the way down.

also, the guy who just left the team last week? he'd convinced us all that the migration i took over was ready. tonight we discovered that it really wasn't.

oh, and i wasn't home to receive my son, who - in spite of a bit of a freak-out because he'd waited at the wrong bus stop on the way home - had managed to take the comics back to the comics library all by himself, by bus ^_^

my "dinner" was two slices of happy hour vegan pizza (it wasn't bad) and a beer, but when i got home i had gd's ramen (with bok choy and a yo egg) and dessert. after assuring gd that if i do lose my client over calling it quits for the weekend (with the rest of the task force backing me) it'll make him look bad, i immediately sat down to get all this down before i jump in the shower and probably climb straight into bed.

tomorrow's a big day, mostly in preparation for taking mr smear to a purim family trance party on saturday. we have no idea what's happening with iran - obviously if things go crazy we'll have to stay home - but whatever happens i'm mostly confident we'll be fine 🤞🙏

a change in the weather

 i woke up still in a dream-state this morning, i moved from the bed to the couch (under layers of blankets) and half-slept for a while longer, listening, amazed, to mr smear actually getting up and getting ready without a fight, and then - to his amazement - being able to read without anyone bothering him because he'd done all the things we always have to bother him about.

to be clear, this is exactly what we explain to him almost every day...

i started reading hakim's odyssey, and so far it's really good. it's politically problematic, though. no matter how this one man's story goes or ends, it doesn't change the fact that the majority of refugees are not interested in living under western conditions...

i did some onboarding for my client - monday's going to be complicated, because i'll be onboarding with both my employer and my client on the same day - and i helped gd with dishes while she rearranged our wardrobes and did a triage of our old clothing.

i took my computer and found a coffee shop near mr smear's school, where i worked* for half an hour before going to meet him and hunt down his history book. he was right, it wasn't in his locker, and we found a history that he thinks is his friends, and apparently his friend might have his, and i don't know what's going on but at least for now he's sorted.

* i instructed the LLM copilot, in a more structured way than usual.

i gave him permission to join his friends on a library mission, and on the way to meet them he took me by surprise by asking me how my day went. after updating him, i asked him how his hebrew class went and if he had had to hand it in, and he responded that he hadn't, and that that meant that we didn't need to have such a horrible night last night. when i explained that it wasn't a waste because the homework was done (never mind the importance of him learning to be cooperative and following rules), and that none of us enjoyed the experience... he argued that in his opinion, i *did* seem to be enjoying myself 🤦

gods help us all.

anyway, the vibes were mellow, and i saw the kids off at their station, then returned home to get some more work done.

when i got home, however, there was a nationwide network outage. while i waited, i ate lunch and fired up inscryption for the first time in a while. after finishing eating, i realized that without any network access i had no way of working, or communicating with mr smear, so i headed off to the library.

i was about halfway to the library when i realized that without network access, i wouldn't be able to work from there either :P

fortunately, the network was back online by the time i got there, i could pay for something to drink with my phone and use my mobile hotspot to make some more progress on my project. an hour later, i verified that mr smear was on his way home (without him knowing i was in the same building :P) and then i packed up and returned home too.

homework today was different; his matific exercises have moved into trigonometry territory, so instead of trying to figure out all the things at once, i taught him pythagoras' theorem and we watched a youtube history (puppet history) on how weird the dude was (not exactly age-appropriate, but fine).

dinner was nice, the evening was uneventful. after chatting with our kibbutz cousin (i've been meaning to call her back for two days now), i jumped back into inscryption and a short while ago completed the first act again.

i'm not sure if i'm ready for bed or not, but i need to watch more about what's going on in iran. maybe things are going to (finally) change...

the wrong conspiracy theory debunked

holy cow. we just watched ethos, hosted by woody harrelson and edited by members of the illiterati*.

this documentary, combined with hot coffee, fahrenheit 9/11, ungrip, the century of self and a couple of others, paints a phenomenally bleak picture of the united states, its motivations and its influences.

for the longest time i've found myself infuriated by 9/11 conspiracy theorists. i usually take a skeptical view of conspiracy theories because conspiracies are difficult to pull off and there aren't many organizations with that kind of intelligence, reach and discipline; in the case of the 9/11 conspiracies, the evidence supporting it was utterly refuted early on and there really wasn't any reason to go on and on about how the planes couldn't possibly have caused the amount of destruction that they did.

but what i never heard from 9/11 conspiracy theorists was how it was entirely plausible that the powers that be (presumably the wunch of bankers behind the federal reserve farce) arranged for the attacks in the first place: al qaeda could easily have been inspired and assisted in their attacks without involving so many people that someone would be able to spill the beans. i buy into occam's razor, and that's a fairly simple explanation that doesn't defy the evidence.

anyway, that's not really what ethos is about. i found the ending pleasantly surprising and warmly inspiring. there is hope! and as long as we don't let anyone limit the power that the internet has bestowed upon us, there are ways up out of this subterranean tunnel.

* the subtitles were surprisingly wrong a lot of the time and some of the quotes had spelling errors, one would expect a production like this to be slightly more serious about quality control

dear WIRED

Hi

I haven't received my issue in a couple of months, which is fine because I use my subscription to log in to the digital edition on my iPad. I would be very grateful if you could stop delivering physical copies and instead just let me continue to use my digital pass that I pay for anyway. I would also be very grateful if you could make this an option available to all subscribers, WIRED is the one magazine that I would *expect* to have a high enough respect for our environment to consider this option.

On a related note, I find it extremely tiring that I have access via iPad but not iPhone, and I have access via my partner's Android device... but I don't have access from my PC unless I've downloaded an issue on a mobile device, sent myself an article via email and then logged in using the link on my PC. I've paid for the subscription, your PC offering is just as good as your mobile offering, and it's just plain silly that I can't find an easy way to just log in from my PC from the get-go and get the digital magazine experience.

Thank you for your consideration.

urgent

to all americans reading this: this is your chance to regain some of your rights.

stopping racism and police brutality would be cool too... though i do believe that's a lot more difficult to achieve. i'm not justifying looting and arson, 'cause destroying your own infrastructure is stupid and counterproductive. but rioting in general? after all the shit that the black communities in america are still being made to suffer?

...

is bud light beer *trying* to demonstrate just how much rape culture is a thing?

maybe everyone has been drinking the kool-aid.

highs, lows and the navigation thereof

"efficient, organized, neat, and systematic"? i'm trying, mom. i'm trying. but the last two weeks (?!?!!!) have been absolutely insane, they've seen me hit real lows for the first time in many years and some seriously real highs as well. i don't know where to begin The Great Posting, but i've got to start somewhere.

considering the fact that i'm overwhelmed by all the crazy shit i'm doing right now, my journal might be reduced to a long list of barely intelligible items.

oh, well. have a performance instead.

out of the way

before i begin squishing my week into this tiny space, i'm going to dump a few things that have been on my mind. in no particular order.

---twilio is amazing. i've been given a good introduction by one of my co-workers and it's something that someone like me could really use!

open-source mobile windmills? we could use a couple of these. the timing's good too: climate change has become disturbingly apparent.

support for non-immigrant lone soldiers. i think i need to get in touch with these people and become a node in the network.

discovery's dishonesty during shark week is sensationally disappointing.

sierra games are making a comeback!!!

when it comes to medicine, this is why reasonably evidence-based should be a thing.

essentially, ibm is working on synthesizing a human brain. with incredibly cool results ^_^

edward snowden *is* a champion of american values.

google smart lenses. say no more.

radiation scares

badger reposted this sad video about a young girl who got cancer.

it's always correct not to press electronics close to your body if they haven't been specifically cleared for that kind of thing, that doesn't mean wifi and cellphones are dangerous when used properly and there's no need for paranoia.
a lot of misinformation has been disseminated under the guise of science - one of the largest causes is discussed here: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-disconnect-between-cell-phone-fears-and-science/

if you're worried about radiation in general, a great (easy to scan quickly) guide to different levels of radiation is available here: https://xkcd.com/radiation/

and if you're worried about microwaves... check http://nutritionfacts.org/video/best-cooking-method/ out!

this is nothing more than sensationalist media doing their uneducated fear-mongering thing. it's a terrible story you posted... i don't wish cancer on anyone... but seriously? under her bra? that's clearly not smart.

life - work - balance - links

google founders think that we work too much? and some wealthy guy thinks three days a week is enough? i'll agree in principle, but i think that it's more realistic to suggest that people should focus less on hours worked and more on setting reasonable goals.

regardless, according to this article obama doesn't appear to be having much affect on the amount of hours americans are working.

---as bored as i was about the world cup and as irritated by how badly fifa screws with the host countries, i'm impressed by the casa futebol proposal.

i've talked about switching off your car's engine before [here, here, here, here, here], i'm hoping that the fact that lifehacker is talking about it will get the idea spread...

synthesized biological leaves? sounds amazing!

---on the nutrition front, here's how you should be looking at risk when it comes to food.

at least some health care organizations are cottoning on to the benefits of plant-based diets.

a month of links

politics and bureaucrats

the tsa are still being useless assholes.

speaking of phones, how safe are ours from various governments?

elon musk understands what's wrong with patent law.

tech

THIS is a what a smartwatch should look like!

quadcopters: letting us see fireworks the right way.

jerktech: thoroughly disappointing hi-tech "solutions".

iphone photograph awards: these photos say a lot about photography.

the wheezy asthma attack detector has an interesting history.

environment

rolling coal: conservative americans take pride in being the dumbest people on the planet :(

harley davidson's livewire prototype is beautiful.

massive underground oceans? colour *me* impressed!

education

17 websites that will make you smarter is a great list!

this french tech school seems to "get" it.

business

starbucks college fund: good business.

who should worry about work-life balance?

psychology

recalibrate your reality is an incredibly interesting and well-written article.

conserving energy - part i

it's been a rough few days, primarily because i've been stressed and not feeling at the top of my game: i've been exhausted, my brain's been operating in slow motion and i've been trying to read as much as i possibly can so that i can call up my future boss and be ready for anything.

...

i've been trying out songza now that google's bought it, and i'm listening to coffee shop indie as i write this. pretty cool.

---wednesday:

wednesday morning began with an argument about kendall jones and animal conservation. i originally wrote "she's about as good for conservation as deforestation", but after a couple of articles (here, here and here) i realized that as unfortunate as promoting the killing of wildlife for sport may be, it does appear to be counteracting the disastrous efforts of poachers so from a practical point of view i guess i need to keep my animal rights opinions in check.

the guy i was arguing with was the pro-gun anti-obama moron that i studied with, and on a number of occasions i came pretty close to unfriending him. but i guess the above realization is precisely why we shouldn't ignore people who we disagree with. speaking of which, xkcd's commentary on the ethics of the research fiasco is on the mark as usual. i don't want facebook hiding posts i might not engage with. that's just stupid.

...

i grabbed my ipod to go shopping, and was horrified to find that it's suddenly in its death throes. its screen is faded and crossed with scan lines. it feels like it's too soon since my last one went, but i guess it's had a good run. i don't have the cash to replace it right now and i have to say i'm quite upset that i've no way to back up all the tracks i ripped from my physical cds in israel :(

there were garbage bags outside the apartment building again, i hope we won't have to pay for those. i suddenly remembered that i needed more breakfast shake when i saw popeye's discount bills in my wallet, so i headed over there where i had an interesting conversation about vegan protein with the owner. apparently progressive accounts for vegetable bio-availability when labelling protein quantities, whereas vega doesn't. not cool, vega.

the rest of the shopping was quick and after lunch i read some more dr who comics and took a nap.

...

it had been a tough day so far, primarily because i hadn't the energy to do a damned thing. it was so hot. so far, the best part of my day had been receiving a photo of gd's second journal entry: i've convinced her to try keeping a drawn diary as an excuse to practice. so far, very cute indeed :)

...

i tried studying, and i made a little progress. afterwards i discovered that i can connect humble bundle to my steam account. seriously?! now i don't have an excuse not to purchase their game bundles, previously i simply didn't want to have to add another source to gog and steam. not that i'm in a position to be buying much right now, but in general that's pretty sweet!

i finally updated zombies, run! and ran along the lachine canal. 'cause i live here now, it's kinda silly not to :)
the run was pretty good, considering i haven't simply run in ages and i was being very careful about my form. i'm in serious need of cardio training, and i wanted to get back to the story in any event. my phone won't sync my old phone's missions so i have to begin again, the gps initialized incorrectly so my stats show an average of about 120kph for the first minute or two, and it's not picking up my pace so i never get chased by zombies. aside from that, my playlist is awesome and the route is excellent, so i guess i'm back into running when i don't have it in me to get to the gym.

after yesterday's run, though, i think that i should be listening to french music or podcasts as i go. i'll need something that'll power me as well as alter bridge, foo fighters, godsmack, (hed) p.e., karnivool, linkin park, lostprophets* and marilyn manson.

* as i said, i'm not going to stop listening to their music but i do think about the whole thing with disgust every time one of their songs comes on.

it was so hot and humid that i got out of the shower still sweating :(

[gd surprising me with an uncomfortable discussion that seems to have been about something we don't need to worry about but was a residual effect of an argument we had a while back]

gd and i went to p.m. for dinner, which was delicious but the pad thai was so incredibly spicy that we gave up halfway (made for a good following lunch, at least). we went to bed tired and still sweating.

[continued...]

smoothies and swimming pools

yesterday:

i woke up from dreaming of hanging out with serious fighters in an abandoned warzone, they began harmonizing and were seriously impressed by my singing voice.

i didn't feel like sleeping late; rather i was compelled to arrange things before heading out to bring over more stuff. the screen door gave us some shit, apparently we hadn't put it back correctly :/
we tried watching gintama over breakfast and coffee but gd wasn't up for subtitles. i decided to go, i was taking a large piece of her couch across and we had a fight about whether or not i would take a taxi... which she won. the taxi ride felt like it took forever.

my ps3 *was* there, as were some insects who'd moved in to the trash can and a whole lot of dirt under the carpet i was rolling up which indicates that maybe uncle hate isn't entirely wrong about the cleaning lady's work ethic. i took old meds to the pharmacy for disposal, stopped at the subway for a delicious avocado sub, then returned to fill my luggage with clothing and winter gear and return home.

of course, i packed it really well and forgot to close it, so as soon as i tried to drag it out it opened up and everything tumbled out. lovely.

obviously the first thing to do when i returned was set up the playstation. gd's tv has two hdmi inputs... but only one of them works, so we had to choose between apple tv and ps3. that wasn't too complicated a choice, fortunately. i switched out her superheated amplifier and speakers for my sound bar, which is great from an eco/bill-conscious point of view and the quality's better, but the damned thing doesn't remember volume settings so every time you turn it on you have to press the + button repeatedly until the max light flashes :(

a good friend of gd's arrived and drove us to the apartment for another mission, this time focusing on the carpet and couch cover. i don't think i mentioned the weekend's weather: it was HOT and HUMID. moving under these conditions was trying and damp.

---after her friend left we watched forks over knives. have you seen it? you should see it. seriously, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't.

i'm not saying you have to agree with it, i'm just saying that every single person on this planet needs to be exposed to it. all arguments (after watching it) welcome.

---i played a little tekken, we went heavy* shopping. after that i went alone to my apartment for some hot, sweaty-night-hating packing and struggling over priorities... and then just missing the metro with ice cream in hand and no spoon.

* my arms were already hurting after the previous day's labour.

it was late and i was tired, i showered, had a frozen meal, finished the ice cream and fell into bed.

---today:

i woke up from a long dream in which i didn't participate in an improv / karaoke event in a large concert hall, then found myself spending a night with buddies in jerusalem and was forced to resolve a hostage situation, frustrating the guy who tried to kill a whole bunch of us with our cellphones and obtaining the evidence we needed to put him away.

getting up was rather rough.

gd and i had enough time to finish packing the last of the important stuff and cleaning up before the woman arrived to inspect. she didn't need to inspect, she decided after a short while, but was absolutely stunned at the state of my apartment. she was shocked that it was so clean and that it hadn't been repainted. i'm always shocked by how people damage their apartments, because fucking things up takes effort.

an hour and a half after getting there we were outside with boxes and bags waiting for a taxi. we dropped everything off, relaxed for a bit with an awesome smoothy that i could make now that i've found the stupid tap attachment, watched yes man which is a surprisingly entertaining movie and then went to the municipal swimming pool.

i like that pool, and i love the fact that we live right next door ^_^

i'm currently playing housewife while gd trains (i'll go tomorrow and hope that the gym's not closed for canada day), then we're off to the movies.

*breathes deeply*
*sweats a little*