Sam's L33t Journal

Snowy morning this morning. So much not to write about this week.

At work, my manager abruptly left the company due to [reason redacted by management; as near as I can tell he wasn't technically laid off but maybe something of the sort]. So that's three changes of manager since I changed teams only three years ago, in addition to the engineering headcount dropping by half in the past year.

In the news, the US executive department seems to be trying to do reorg-by-Elon-Musk, specifically having Musk do the equivalent of cutting the power to whatever he doesn't like at first glance. I want to emphasize that Musk is inevitably going to find a bunch of stuff conservatives find dumb / expensive, specially since they take both "helping people" and "raising the reputation of American democracy" as non-goals. So don't get caught up in an eternal Gish gallop about whether this or that program is a good idea, on the premise that it's reasonable to judge that from a title and headline amount.

Musk is a guy who believes he is able to acquire at-a-glance expertise at basically anything, but he's also a dum-dum who uncritically takes up stupid right-wing conspiracy theories. He's become very conspiracy minded, and seems to see smoking-gun evidence of massive fraud in observations adequately explained by "old computer systems are old".

Having the (advisor to the) President line-item manage the whole government regardless of whatever Congress says is also not how our Constitutional system is supposed to work, but all Republicans in Congress seem fully in support of this approach, and that's unlikely to change until they manage to really obviously break something.

Let's see, what else... maybe a little media talk:

I finished playing The Outer Wilds. As I said earlier, I really recommend you check it out spoiler-free. It's a really remarkable example of knowledge-as-progression in a game. As is often the case in such games, key bits of information are eventually obtainable in some explicit form (e.g. writing or diagrams, something that is diegetically explaining the thing). But in this game there are so many instances where you can figure out those key insights just through careful observation and deduction, which is really rewarding

I also finished the second season of Megalobox, which was really very well done. I think the remarkable thing about that is how different it manages to be than the first season, which is a pretty typical sports story, an underdog-to-champion arc. The second season jumps ahead to start in media res a story about being a former champion, struggling with the

Finally, I've returned to playing Dicey Dungeons. Still a very fun and funny game, but some of the challenges are quite tricky.

Had an interval of solo parenting while Julie was on her trip (she returns tomorrow). It's been going pretty smoothly. Erica and I played a few games of Forbidden Desert, which was fun, I need to dig a bit more into our collection of co-op games. On Saturday, Erica had her first art lesson at the MFA, and we went to the Science Museum in the afternoon. On Sunday, we went climbing, I met up with an Ingress teammate to say hello and swap some in-game gear, then I took Erica to the aquarium. This afternoon, Erica is over at a friend's house, so I have a moment to myself.

I've been watching a few anime shows recently, too, which I want to talk about a bit, so let's talk media!

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End - If you are at all a fan of the fantasy genre, watch this one. The brief synopsis: A long-lived elven mage was one of the party of heroes who defeated the demon king some decades prior. Their journey together took ten years, but was still one of the most significant intervals in her millennia-long life. They parted ways, and then a short (from her perspective) time later, her comrades are old or gone. She finds herself filled with regret that she let the moment pass so lightly. She ends up on a journey retracing her steps, with new proteges who were themselves students of her former comrades. Beyond that synopsis, it's hard to describe what in particular is good about this show because everything about it is so great. That said, it's hard to think of other examples where the narrative pacing is the best aspect of a work of fiction, and that's arguably the case here. This show can use narrative techniques that often destroy pacing without skipping a beat, and it's capable of putting more brilliance into a 14-second recap flashback than some shows put into entire episodes.

Re:CREATORS - This show is soon disappearing off of Prime Video into the graveyard of lost media due to Amazon's disaster of an anime streaming venture. I took the time to watch it at the recommendation of some anime enthusiasts I follow who really liked it. But it struck me as just an okay random-characters-random-powers science-fantasy venture, with a somewhat interesting concept. The power system isn't fleshed out enough or consistent enough to make the mystery of characters trying to suss out one another's weaknesses that interesting. On the other hand, it is a rare opportunity to indulge in the perhaps-under-served power fantasy of "for the sake of the world, we need to give your particular creative venture unlimited budget". Worth watching if you really like that sort of thing, though I don't know how you'll be able to get it without resorting to piracy.

Summer isn't done with us yet.

I've got this Nest thermostat, and if you're not familiar with that sort of "smart" thermostat, it does two things re AC in the summer:

1. Try to learn what temperature you like it.

2. Set it to much warmer than that temperature to save you money.

The feature that sets it warmer when you're actually not in the house is fine, but the "rush hour" feature that sets it a little warmer at "peak" times (i.e. when you, too, most want your air well conditioned) is a bit more aggravating. This year especially. It seems to me like in past years it would set things a few degrees higher, but when my schedule says 73 and the thermostat is like "how about 79?" that seems a bit much.

Actually, there are a lot of ways I wish Nest was a bit smarter. There's no way for it to look at my calendar and pre-cool/warm the house when I get back from a vacation. Or even have me tell it when I'm getting back manually and have it take that into account. It doesn't adjust the schedule to my preferences that well. It supports multiple temperature sensors, but only supports looking at one at a time and only can switch between on a fixed schedule. It can't do anything based on the difference in temperatures (in particular, I'd like it to run the fan if only some of the sensors are as cool as I want). The fan can be run automatically if it wouldn't otherwise be on, but only on a fixed schedule.

All right, enough rambling on that topic. Summer is coming to an end one way or another. My mom brought Erica back to town, had a wonderful time doing stuff together, she got to go to school dropoff for Erica's first day of second grade. Then she got COVID after returning home. At least she's feeling better after a prompt course of Paxlovid. We haven't gotten sick yet, but school year's started and stuff is going around.

Had a good long weekend with some extra climbing and a trip to the Science Museum. Also took Erica to the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum (touristy, but educational, hadn't been in ages). Erica -acted very closed-off and shy, but then said she enjoyed it.

This week, some of the computer systems are down at kid's school after some sort of security issue (a ransomware attack, maybe, they haven't been real forthcoming with the details).

I had one of Erica's friends over on Tuesday and Erica's at his house today. Nice to have a break, but sometimes I get stressed out when I have a break. So much to do, so little time. (And yet I manage to get to some things, like hammering some words onto the virtual page here. It's good.)

I'm enjoying the new Magic set, though I feel like I haven't figured out a deck to do well in new Standard. Want to play some limited of the new set, haven't had the time.

Also been really enjoying the Netflix One Piece. I'm not real familiar with the anime or manga, but people more familiar seem to think it's a good adaptation in addition to being generally good. Amazing how well you can do with that sort of thing when the people doing the adapting clearly like the source material and understand why it's good.

I was up a bit late with Erica last night after Julie ducked out for early bed, and Erica was very upset about something about a game; big feelings about little problems. But eventually she helped me finish cooking a batch of beans (which I enjoy because I'm finally figuring out how to get those really good in the Instant Pot). I appreciate her help on that, she's the #1 fan of beans in this household, so I really want to be able to make them up to her standards. We had some good conversation about all sorts of things, including how to describe different kinds of spices and computer security.

Eris got her first COIVD-19 vaccine on Monday.

Your Local Epidemiologist had an interesting post about rubella, as a case-study of a disease that's been suppressed through widespread vaccination for the sake of a particularly vulnerable group (pregnant women), even though it's mild for most (less severe than COVID-19).

The lack of quiet leisure has been driving me mad. Eris is anything but quiet. Julie did finally get her out of the house today to play some of Niantic's new Pikmin walkabout.

I did get some time for media etc. I finished Beastars, which was pretty good. I watched Weathering with You, which is for sure one of Shinkai's best, and very much captures an aspect of the present mood. The new Magic set is out, and it's pretty fun (for the first time in a long time it shares a common setting with the last; after last set's warewolf Halloween, this one centers around a vampire wedding). I've been really enjoying the webcomic Sleepless Domain, though it has the usual hazard of narrative webcomics, as you start getting invested in the story you start to notice how much the pace of publication is glacially slow. (Still, it's a good one and the first collection is out in print now if you like that sort of thing).

My indie TTRPG group finished a run of Urban Shadows. Don't know what we'll do next. Maybe Dreampunk, now that it's out.

Maybe I should watch the new Dune movie?

Have some cooking plans for this weekend, and getting ready for Thanksgiving at home next week.

More of the usual about how I'd be happier if I wrote more but I don't and I feel my entire life has become incoherent. Or how it's like time has sped up. Eight weeks of reopening in and now I'm feeling like the fatigue is sinking in again. Though to be fair we are being very careful for daycare's sake. Sending kid to daycare is incaution enough, surely. But it's been such a big positive difference from the daycare shutdown. I expect there is more shutdown in the future and I dread that a bit. Also hope no one will get sick.

It's performance review time at work again. This is the redo of the process that was cancelled most of the way through six months ago. So instead of writing up a great twelve months, I'm writing up that plus six more months that were quite disrupted. And instead of going up for promotion again, I'm not. To be fair, doing that now seemed like a bit of a stretch six months ago. Maybe quite a bit. And maybe I should just be aiming to do well at my current level. And things are objectively good. But I still feel a bit stuck, and I've been on my main project for over twelve years now, and that's quite a bit. Which cuts both ways, I've got a lot of expertise and there's a lot I like about the work and the team.

Also, I have a bunch of urgent work this week that's been going way slower than I would like. For reasons, to be sure. But I'd like to be faster.

I've been sleeping poorly again this week, after many weeks of gradual (though bumpy) improvement.

What have I been up to over the past few weeks? It's a jumble. I've done some cooking. I watched all of Japan Sinks in like two settings a while back. I finished Paper Mario, though with a few things left short of 100% completion.

I went to Loyal Nine a few times, which has been my only dining out since March. They have a lovely wide-open cafe and patio, and as always everything they do is so beautiful. A juvenile sparrow there has gotten so familiar with people that it was stealing food from diners' plates as they ate. It surprised me by literally landing on my shoulder while I was waiting.

Julie and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with dinner at Oleana, brought home and rewarmed before serving. Still made for a nice special occasion meal. Arminda, the daycare caretaker, had Eris stay over for dinner so Julie and I could have a dinner date to ourselves, which was really nice of her.

Eris is really interested about what she was like as a baby recently and wants to spend a lot of time looking at photos. She's also become keenly aware of all the toys she doesn't have and is eagerly awaiting her birthday (in January, don't hold your breath kid). I'm trying to teach her to not let the fact that there will always be things she doesn't have mar the enjoyment of what she does have, even new toys she's just received. It's hard to have a conversation with other people when the kid's around, she really doesn't like it when other people are talking instead of focusing on her. She's succumbing a bit to quarantine fatigue, too, there's more asking about "when things reopen", wanting to know when that will happen, that she'll be able to do various things again when it does.

I guess I don't know if four's a harder age than three, hard to tell given the circumstances. Probably Eris is adapting to many of these challenges more readily than she would have a year ago. She is very high energy, though, and I am very not.

It's been another two weeks. What have I been up to the past two weeks?

We did go play some Ingress and eat Cutty's chicken with some Ingress friends last week.

I actually have managed to get in a bit more long-form media than usual:

I read Alex Honnold's memoir Alone on the Wall, which was pretty interesting, including Honnold's account of the El Capitan free solo climb.

I've also been reading Radicalized, Cory Doctorow's new collection of four novellas. I like it, but expect people will like the book or not depending on if they generally like Doctorow's stuff.

I watched the first season of The Promised Neverland. Really good. I really like how it doesn't let the usual focus on the protagonists' cleverness and determination undermine the stakes, and it does a great job of making the motivations of the villains (at least, the ones in the foreground) understandable.

Finally, I've been playing Baba is You, a block-pushing rule-changing logic puzzle game where the rules of the game are set by blocks of text in the level and you can change the rules by manipulating those blocks. It's mind-bending and quite hard and one of the best-designed puzzle games I've seen. Often the levels seem so constrained and yet so impossible, until you have an aha moment about how it works. The mechanics are consistent and the individual mechanics are fairly simple, but the interactions are complex and the game is all exploration, no explanation. (It's actually complex enough to be Turing complete.)

That aside, work has been busy and it's been a struggle to get Eris to sleep on time. Nothing new.

Work continues to be busy but tiring. I'm only now getting to clearing some of my backlog both there and at home. Hence the delay in posting.

Two weekends ago (Labor Day weekend) was my sister's wedding! It was a wedding retreat, a whole weekend with immediate family old and new at a vacation home in the mountains in Newry, Maine. The wedding was beautiful, and the whole weekend was very relaxing. Congratulations again to Melissa and Elliott!

The highlight of the weekend for me, actual wedding aside, was taking the kid on her first hike. I bought an awesome backpack carrier, Eris enjoyed surveying her domain, and it was quite a workout! You can really tell the optimists from the pessimists among the people you pass on a steep hike, the former tell you encouragingly that the summit is right around the corner, the latter tell you accurately that it's still quite a ways. (One inversely-directed hiker compared Erica in her backpack to "the Queen of Sheba", to which I responded "and I, her loyal servant".) I definitely need to get in some more use of that backpack. It's fun!

(That and stargazing from the roof deck of the house. It's been a long time since I've had such a good view of the stars.)

I've been trying to get in more of activities I consider worth having done in retrospect and less of stuff that seems like a waste of time. It's not always what I expect.

Things that were good uses of my free time:

• Going to Michelle's birthday party
• An extended Sunday brunch that ended up taking all of the morning and a bit of the afternoon
• Getting back to reading S.
• Starting to read Fix (the conclusion of a trilogy)
• Reading books in general, including on the Kindle app on my phone
• Long strolls with the kid
• Catching up on Fear the Walking Dead (even though that's not nearly as good as the show it's a spinoff of)
• Watching Dennou Coil (most briefly described as "Google Glass the anime")
• LJ discussion threads, even though it takes me entirely to long to edit entirely too wordy comments
• Cooking, even when it's something simple

Things that were not good uses of my time:

• A super-aimless Saturday morning, where it took me far too long to get up and do anything
• Playing a bit of Borderlands (I thought I would enjoy it, but it was just too repetitive and grindy)
• Excessive Facebook browsing

Erica is developing really quickly and seems to be really having fun with her rapid increase in capabilities. She loves playing with her toys, especially an electronic music-box that's all flashing primary-colored lights and snippets of classical music, anything with moving parts she can manipulate, and anything that makes noise when she hits it against the floor.

Eristic improvements: Dancing (including moving to the beat of music), standing assisted, bouncing up and down from a standing position (every day is leg day!), pulling herself up to sitting, kneeling, or half-standing poses on her own. Getting bored mid-hygiene and trying to get away (come back, baby!). Trying to get into the container of wipes to chew on them (evidently delicious?). Eating more varieties of food (though her reaction to some really new things is very dramatic: super-exaggerated disgust-face followed by demanding more followed by surprised laughter at every bite). Trying to remove books from lower bookshelves (the bungee cords are deterrent enough for now). She still is way into making that growling sound, too!

The weekend before last, I was out of town at PyCon. It was fun representing Google at the career fair, and I enjoyed the talks I attended. I was able to work from the Montreal office that Monday before heading home. I see why people are so happy at that office, it's a neat little space with a small engineering team. Plus Montreal seemed like a pretty interesting and friendly city.

Some talks of note:

• Gary Bernhardt gave a talk on the history of JavaScript from 1995 to 2035. It is amazing.
• Julie Pagano (a fellow Googler) gave a talk on battling impostor syndrome in the tech industry, with advice more broadly applicable to developing your career and fostering participation in your workplace in general (with a shoutout to Hacker School's code of conduct, which is really good stuff).
• Hynek Schlawack gave a timely look at the state of SSL.

A larger set of talks and tutorials is up here.

This weekend was marathon weekend, yet another weekend when all the things happen at once. Bergamot serves an amazing Easter brunch.

Getting ready for wedding season. DJ and Michelle are getting married in two weeks, my cousin Ben's wedding is two weeks after that.

The situation in Ukraine continues to be messed up.

Two weekends ago: Dinner at Journeyman (fantastic) with DJ and Zach (sp?) (DJ's friend), BarCamp Boston (I did go to the second day after all).

One weekend ago: Saw The Dark Crystal (there are many good thing about this movie, but that doesn't change the fact that it's overall pretty terrible) and Labyrinth (awesome) at the Brattle Theater. Thrifted some vintage clothes to attend Michelle's "Totally Rad Party" with Tara and DJ and others. Saw the first episode of "Game of Thrones" with Amarley et al (people who I know from medieval dance and the local anime meetup group).

This weekend: Anime Boston, which I'm not really as into a PAX East and so on, but it's still fun. Was excited to see all the people cosplaying Homestuck characters (in other news, MS Paint Adventures is awesome, and Homestuck is probably the most bizarre piece of postmodern fiction I've ever read). Got in a dinner at Eastern Standard with DJ and Michelle. That place deserves it's reputation for exceptional drinks, and the dessert was also fantastic, but everything else, while not bad, didn't seem at all like a good value.

Looks like Saam will be moving out post-graduation at the beginning of June. With luck, Zach will be replacing him. (Without luck, we'll be housemate-searching on Craigslist again.) It's been good, but not nearly long enough since the last time the residents of this house changed. Can't be helped, I suppose.

This week is the Boston Independent Film Festival. Weekend after that is the International Steampunk City in Waltham.

Tough week. Busy at work. Missed work Tuesday and Wednesday because I was struck flat by some sort of virus. Still trying to shake off the last bit of sore throat and cough from that. Hopefully will be able to have a useful workout tomorrow?

Interesting watching the markets crash this week. Seems like everyone's dropping everything to buy gold. Oil is back down close to $70 on decreased expectations for the actually doing things sector of the economy.

Obama's picked a nominee for the Supreme Court, with rather divided reactions. Lawrence Lessig likes her, Brad Hicks is so fed up that he's ready to slap on the Palin '12 bumper sticker and stock up on riot supplies.

MIT Anime Club is closing their events to non-student outsiders and alumni starting next semester, so that's one thing knocked off my schedule.