Alabama notes Dec 2, 2024
It's been almost two years since we've lived in Alabama, and I have some observations. 

First off, we live on the edge of a small city.  So when people think of Alabama, this isn't it.  Granted, driving a few miles outside our city will present you with the most stereotypical views you can imagine -- cotton fields, trailer parks, broken down cars propped up on cinder blocks, and front yard garbage piles.  But our city is a fairly standard small American city -- centered around a major industry, has a Trader Joe's, has a minor league baseball team with a silly name.  It's Alabama, but not that Alabama. 

Now for the good.  The people are friendly, which I think is related to the fact that the pace of life is a little bit slower, which I believe is caused by the general abundance of most things.  It just feels like there's enough space, enough housing, enough roads, enough jobs, and enough stores for all the people there.  There's no need to rush to get anywhere, because there's plenty of time to get there.  There's plenty of parking.  If you make a wrong turn, you can easily make a U-turn.  Nothing is a problem, which makes people move slower, which makes people friendly.  This was an unexpected improvement in my life. 

Compared to where we moved from, the property taxes are lower, there are more restaurants (that don't go out of business -- what's wrong with you, New Jersey?), there are more social spaces to meet up with family and friends, and there are more activities for kids (and adults -- if you like trampoline parks). 

Now for the bad.  We've lived in the New York City Italian/Irish Metropolitan Megalopolis our entire lives.  No one outside that area of the world can make good pizza.  Period.  Everyone knows this.  Certain restaurants can make "different" pizza that tastes good, and even Alabama has some of those places.  But the most expensive restaurant on earth could employ the most talented chefs for a million years and still not beat a lukewarm slice of limp, uninspiring pizza from any New York City grease pit called "Gino's" or whatever. 

But hey, that was no surprise.  What was a surprise was that Alabama isn't very good at making simple cheap sandwiches you'd get at any little Italian deli in New Jersey (related to the pizza issue).  Like, there are good sandwich places around, and I admittedly haven't tried them all.  But I miss the familiarity of, again any old "Gino's" or whatever, having a mind-blowing sandwich that sort of changes your outlook on life. 

A similar but different thing that's missing is of course Wawa, but more generally an overabundance of cheap, generic, reliable, clean, convenience store / gas station / sandwich place combination stores.  Those types of places provide a real sense of solace when leaving your house, and I miss not having a reliable place to stop for a breakfast burrito or coffee while I fill my tank. 

And finally, ice cream.  I'm gonna sound like a broken record, but ice cream is attainable in the northeast from any store named Gino's, or the Whatever Creamery, or Some Innuendo About Milk, and it's served by a bunch of teenagers with braces, and it's literally the best ice cream you've ever eaten.  Any flavor, any day of the week, any day of the year (unless they close for the winter).  Alabama tries, and absolutely fails.  I don't know what the problem is.  It has something to do with the flavor profile of the base mixture or something -- too much or not enough butter or something like that.  Ice cream is not and has never been a significant part of my life, but it's absence is devastating (I'm overreacting because I want ice cream right now). 

Yes I realize all my complaints are about food; no I don't know what that says about me.  If I could philosophize a little:  Life is largely about having experiences, seeing places, meeting people, and finding the activities, places, and people that provide you the most joy.  I weirdly have no problem finding new people to like, so that's sort of covered.  And most activities I enjoy can be experienced anywhere, or don't require a specific location to experience them.  But at the end of the day, when I'm done experiencing things and meeting people, I want to go to my comfortable home, be with my comfortable family, and eat comfortable food like New York pizza and ice cream.  It's not to say I won't find new comfort food in the future, but right now that's the comfort I crave. #lifestyle
Phish Mondegreen Secret Set Sep 15, 2024
I had the pleasure of attending Phish's Mondegreen festival a few weeks ago, and I happened to experience one of the most profound musical events of my life.  Phish has a history of doing an unannounced "thing" at some point during their festivals.  At a previous festival, it was a jam session from the top of an air traffic control tower.  For Mondegreen, there were some rumors about what it might be and when it might happen.  I heard it might be some sort of ambient instrumental thing in the middle of the night, which honestly didn't sound that appealing, especially after a full night of music, especially on one of four nights of music. 

What ended up happening has come to be called "the Secret Set," which was a 50-minute continuous improvised instrumental jam, with a series of trippy videos projected on a screen covering the entire stage.  It was performed live, in front of ~40,000 people, on the first try, in one take.  In a word, it was incredible. 

As I've mentioned before, Phish as a band is all about energy management.  And the Secret Set was no different.  It started off calm and breezy.  There were ups and downs.  Ins and outs.  Tension, release.  Deconstruction, reconstruction.  The entire thing was like a story -- birth, growth, conflict, chaos, despair, resolution, celebration.  It ended like an explosion. 

The main difference with this was that they didn't play a single Phish song.  Usually their jams are centered around a song, or sandwiched between two songs.  Even if the audience gets lost or bored, you know the band will eventually find their way back to familiar ground.  This had none of that.  What was interesting is that they almost played a few Phish songs.  And quite honestly it's surprising they didn't.  Musicians tend to go back to what they're comfortable with.  Also, there are only so many combinations of chord progressions you can play before you cover something you've done before.  And Phish did a little of that, but they seemed to intentionally avoid playing their songs. 

The most significant aspect of it all was the unknown.  The audience had no idea what to expect.  We had no idea what was happening, how long it would take, or where it would end up.  There was a palpable feeling of anticipation in the air.  There was a sense of familiarity, because we knew why we were there and generally what we were dealing with.  But there was also a sense of kid-on-Christmas-morning surprise.  Like, "I can't wait to see what happens, and I hope it never ends."  The final sequence of the set felt like a party, a reunion, something you've never seen or heard before, but exactly what you were hoping it would be.  I remember walking out of the venue and saying to some friends, "I don't know how they did it, and I didn't think they were gonna figure it out, but they got there."  Just absolutely mind-blowing. 

I've listened to the recording of the Secret Set a few dozen times now, and every time I get the same array of feelings.  But listening to it live for the first time was nothing short of magical.  Easily a top-five life experience for me. #music
Activity obsession Aug 26, 2024
Activities, experiences, and hobbies can be grouped into the following categories: 
  • have done, would do again
  • have done, would not do again
  • have never done, would do
  • have never done, would never do
There are certain things you can be "into" but not into.  Like I've played golf and gone snowboarding a bunch, and I would do those things again, but I'm not actively pursuing any opportunities at the moment.  Similarly, there are things I've never tried but would be willing to, like maybe pottery or meat smoking.  I'm open to the idea. 

But then there are other things that if you're "into" you're into.  Hunting and fishing are two things that most people don't dabble in.  Those who do dabble, don't dabble, they're obsessed.  No one who's into fishing is only into it a little.  I find that distinction interesting.  It either says something about the attractiveness of the activity, or maybe the drive of the individual.  Or maybe it's just a weird lizard brain thing. #lifestyle
Spending time Aug 24, 2024
The way I spend my time can be broken up into work, hobbies, chores, and time-wasters. 

Work takes time, is sometimes enjoyable, but primarily provides a benefit.  Work is what I do for money.  Depending on the person and the job, the level of enjoyment and the level of benefit may be higher or lower.  But the way I think of it is this:  Would I be doing this if I didn't get paid?  If not, then that's a job.  If I enjoy it but I don't get paid, that's volunteer work.  If I don't enjoy it and also don't get paid, that's slavery (avoid that if possible). 

Hobbies take time, are enjoyable, and provide a benefit.  I've settled on a handful of hobbies that I rotate through but keep coming back to:  hiking, playing video games, making music, writing code, reading books, and watching TV/movies/sports.  You could argue that things like playing video games and watching TV are too passive to count as "providing a benefit," but I would counter by saying that it only looks like that from the outside.  Certain video games are challenging and frustrating and require planning and precise execution.  Completing a certain section or achieving a certain end goal can be extremely fulfilling and memorable.  The same goes for watching TV, movies, and sports.  Certain art can challenge your preconceptions and make you think differently about people, places, and situations.  Sports offer the potential to witness greatness and feel part of a larger community.  These all count as hobbies in my book.  Certain hobbies, like writing code, sound suspiciously like a job.  The key difference is that hobbies largely don't earn you money.  Otherwise they'd be called a job.  I suppose you could argue that it can still be a hobby even if it earns you money, but that's blurring the lines and I'm not about that. 

Chores take time, are NOT enjoyable, and yet provide a benefit.  These include mowing the lawn, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, changing sheets and towels, cleaning floors/carpets, and essentially all home improvement projects.  When I do these things I always think about how much it feels like I'm wasting my time, and yet they definitely provide me with a direct benefit.  My daughter said, "Oh, Daddy can clean the dishes; he loves to clean," and I had to emphatically assure her I in fact DO NOT like cleaning, but I like when things ARE clean. 

Time-wasters take time, are enjoyable, but provide no benefit.  Pretty much all social media falls into this category, as do memes and silly videos and stuff like that.  Time-wasters are important in my opinion, because wasting time is a significant part of being a human in the modern world.  I almost can't imagine what people used to do to waste the few minutes or hours they had between work, hobbies, and chores.  I guess they did mostly the same sorts of things as today but in a slightly different form:  Read trashy magazines and engaged in idle chit-chat with people nearby. #lifestyle
Definitional context Aug 5, 2024
If a word has entirely different meanings depending on the context in which it's used, and most people don't know or can't remember which definition applies to which context, that word probably shouldn't exist.  Words are supposed to simplify ideas, so if you have to define a word every time you use it, it's not working.  See also:  Unnecessary acronyms #language
Promession Jul 25, 2024
I'm not particularly interested in death or body disposal, but I keep coming across fascinating ideas on the topic.  There's resomation, which is liquefying a body in acid.  There's excarnation, which usually involves vultures eating the flesh.  But I just learned about promession which consists of freeze drying a body then vibrating it until it disintegrates into a powder.  I heard about it on the 99% Invisible episode Towers of Silence, which was nearly identical to the Radiolab episode on the same topic, but by begrudgingly listening to it, I learned a new weird thing. #nature
Engineering energy Jun 18, 2024
Engineering is essentially all about taking one type of energy -- mechanical, electrical, chemical, nuclear, solar, gravitational, orbital, potential, kinetic -- and converting it into a different type of energy, storing it for later, or using it to move or create or destroy something. #science
Decision fatigue reduction Jun 17, 2024
Decision fatigue is the concept that having too many options or choices makes it more difficult to decide.  I realized recently that I unintentionally reduce decision fatigue by adopting habits and blindly following them forever.  The benefit of this is that (a) I feel less stressed by having too many decisions to make, and (b) my mental energy can be spent on more important things, like eating cheeseburgers or melting ice cubes.  I've consciously or unconsciously reduced the number of decisions I make on a regular basis with these Ten Simple Tricks (TM) (but I could only think of four for now, so bear with me): 
  1. I wear the same thing everyday.  I have like 24 pairs of exactly the same sock.  My pants are all versions of "khaki".  My shirts are all some sort of blue or some sort of green.  Everything matches.
  2. I use a clothes rotation.  I wear whatever is at the back of the closet or the bottom of the pile, then I put worn/clean clothes at the front/top.  It's literally more effort to not do this.
  3. I eat the same thing or the same concept of thing for pretty much all meals.  Meals are generally meat, vegetables, carbs.  Today's meal is tomorrow's leftover.
  4. I park in the same parking spot at work every single day.  I sit in the same chair in the conference room for every meeting.
I used to think it was weird that I'm such a creature of habit.  But in reality it's more beneficial for me to make a decision one time, then never have to make that decision again. #psychology
Choosing a username May 15, 2024
One of the more difficult tasks in modern life is choosing a username for some newfangled digital system.  Sure, it's not terribly significant.  And yet the Hotmail email address you created in 1998 stuck around for a lot longer than you anticipated.  You can never tell which website or app is gonna be the next "thing," so it's sort of important to choose a name that's relevant, meaningful, and not embarrassing. 

I have a tendency to want to put some variation of my name (first or last or a combo) in everything.  But this can get a little wordy, especially if firstname.lastname is taken so you have to go with firstname.middlename.lastname.  Then every time you have to give your email address over the phone (yes this still happens in the year 2024), it's a whole thing. 

Plus, the internet is sometimes a scary place, so you might not want your real name attached to everything.  Or sometimes you just want to be anonymous.  I think there's value in anonymity, for the sole reason that you can do a dumb thing and leave it in the past, instead of carrying it with you forever.  (Side note -- kids these days should be allowed to make mistakes without having those mistakes potentially affect every future opportunity they ever have.) 

A username without your name is kind of tricky, because it can be something you like, or an activity you enjoy, or it could be random and arbitrary.  I think the more important aspect of this is:  Will you be sharing this information with someone?  Because you don't want your email on your resume to be something stupid like hikerguy42@aol.  Or if you're connecting with a real-life friend on an app and you have to say your username out loud and it's something like "boiled_fruit_enjoyer" maybe that might be undesirable.  Or maybe not.  I'm not you. 

The overarching issue is that, with an increasing population and the proliferation of internet access, the universe is running out of usernames.  You used to be able to get a two-letter Twitter username (also Twitter used to be called Twitter).  We're eventually moving to a world where your username is auto-generated and just a random combination of numbers and letters.  Choose wisely while you still have the opportunity. #technology
Internet ads Apr 4, 2024
It feels completely absurd to be writing this at this point in the history of the internet, but internet ads have gotten completely insane in the past couple years.  I've used a browser with an ad-blocker for quite some time now, so I'm mostly immune to whatever nonsense is going on in gen-pop.  But on the off chance I inadvertently click a link on some app on my phone that opens an unmodified website full of shit-ass pop-ups and pop-unders and scroll-locks and full-volume auto-play videos and impossible-to-click x-buttons, it feels like my eyes and my brain and my soul are being raped by the worthless, meaningless, functionless products and elixirs and scams peddled by the blood-sucking sociopathic bottom-feeders who gorge on the trickle-down shit that runs our modern economy.  I can't even understand how regular people use the internet.  I remember a time when pop-up ads were a scourge that everyone agreed should be eliminated.  And browsers and plugins and companies were created to address this issue to make a better experience for users.  And this was a success!  Now we've gone so far back down the sewer hole, the modern web is unusable.  And that's not to mention YouTube ads.  If I happen to click a link that takes me to "regular YouTube" and it makes me watch two 15-second unskippable ads, I just go back to whatever I was doing before.  Whatever I clicked on isn't worth it.  No content on YouTube, or really anywhere on the internet, is worth wasting precious seconds of my life with arbitrary, non-contextual ads for fibromyalgia medicine and colorful LED lights.  The one thing the internet has undoubtedly achieved is destroying any semblance we once had of attention span.  Now you want me to look at an ad, a VIDEO ad, and it's multiple seconds long?  Fuck that. #technology