Author: harold

How much of the internet is fake? Studies generally suggest that, year after year, less than 60 percent of web traffic is human.

That is quite surreal when using it everyday to do stuff for decades. But not that surreal when thinking about bots on social media.

Also pictures and videos are so fake now. It used to be relatively good evidence that something happened.  You cannot believe anything without 3 to 4 “trustworthy” sources that will help decipher if something is real or not.

That’s exhausting.

Google et al are responsible. Software developers continue to do shady shit instead of empowering people.

Metrics matter in the real world, not in computers. Views and retweets are vanity bullshit. Quit it, it’s 2019.

Now that I have been using it for over a year at work, I can tell.

The first 9 months, I blocked every single update. Experience, son. Everything was fine. Then the IT department forced updates and changed policies so that now updates are happening constantly.

It freezes the damn machine. It resets settings every single time. Wifi connection issues I’ve never had before, not just on that laptop but on all computers ever. The last time Windows was that bad, it was called Windows ME and we all forgot about it real quick. WTF happened with 10?

Windows 10 interface with that weird mix of black and sad taskbar with thin ass fonts , symbols and colorful, useless tiles is horrendous. The way there are 4 different ways to do anything is too much. Fuck Cortana. It takes 2 good second to display a folder content even with less than a hundred files. It’s embarrassing.

What’s more embarrassing is all the tech “journalists” who said it was fine. Y’all are liars or corrupt to the core or both.

Yes, Windows 8 is the best OS ever. It’s snappy and stable as hell. The super simplified Metro apps are perfect for 95% of people using computers. Any PC software from 1979 to 2019 runs on it. It’s still the shit.

Downgrade, people. Show some spine.

SPOILERZZZ

It was monumental. That Spiderman is like the show Atlanta: we needed that 10-15 years ago. It’s so good. I resent myself watching one trailer, which killed some tension. And sometimes the changes of framerate annoyed me.

Everything else was perfect. As it happens often to me these days, I was having a conversation with my housemate’s nephew in the morning about his relationship with his parents and his uncle and that movie is like, the same.

Also said nephew just looks like Miles. It was eerie and beautiful. He enjoyed the movie thoroughly I believe.

Animation is the best. I only want to see superheroes and spaceship stuff in full CGI now. The freedom offered in terms of shots and editing is impossible to not want every single time after watching Spiderman: into the spiderverse.

Chapeau bas.

H O T D A M N

January starts, I live somewhere and now I live somewhere else, 15 mn away. Sometime that month, for a short period, I make money on the side writing pseudo academic papers for someone. Rough times.

I deal with a black woman being in an abusive relationship the same way that we all often do: too late.

I remember driving another black woman back to Compton, as we were singing over King on a beautiful morning on an empty freeway. Of course I missed the exit. It didn’t matter. She told me I should sing. Maybe I will. I hope she’s well too.

More work. Wood work this time. Paint on weekends, sanding in the morning, staining in between.

I get my bike wheels stolen. I make a video to get hired. I bike with my friend Richard, talking about games for hours. I write to my friend Arthur all the time. We chat over life, as lefty black nerds. Cathartic.

Sometime in July I get a job interview for an outstanding position and it goes well! Best interview of my life. The same weekend a dog bites me in the stomach and I learn that I have 30 days to leave my place. I don’t get the job. I end up getting 60 days to relocate.

I give French lessons to my badass Brooklyn Jew. I receive a letter from my foster family giving me some sad news: conflicts emerged and family members stopped talking to each other. Fuck. I meet this gorgeous and super smart black woman and am low key thinking about impregnating her, that’s how strong she hit me. But then it was like nah, man.

It’s August and KRS-ONE is performing under my window and I run grabbing friends in the streets to go on the roof to smoke and bop heads. I almost open that block party playing a crazy version of the Star Spangled Banner on bass.

I help my homeless black folks hanging at the playground as much as I  can: dollar bills, change, candies, phone calls, leftover pie… I help my black folks at the library as much as I can. I remember going through the motion of sending money to a black woman’s brother in jail somewhere in the midwest. It was wild, convoluted as fuck. I still have my favorite Japanese old woman drive all the way up to see me to help her out with her phone. She’s so adorable.

Gentrification is on some Thanos shit this year, moving relentlessly. My blackity black recreation center is under pressure. My neighbors and I got booted out in a few months. I help to move 3 couches, 2 mattresses, 1 lounge chair and 18 years of random, heavy shit. I haven’t really recovered emotionally.

In October a giant Chinese company wanted to see me to talk sound design, so we met. Although it didn’t go much further than that, it was great for my soul. Luckily, my new place is amazing and I work as much as I can to make it even better: paint jobs, various fixes from the gate to a new router. I can finally not worry too much about food even though I’m still on the Harold’s In The Thick of It Diet (spaghetti for lunch, tuna salad for dinner).

I now bike 20 miles a day and I don’t want to think about it. I miss my white family in France and at the same time, every 2 weeks on Skype, I’m wondering over and over what we have in common, besides sharing a space years ago. Sometimes I feel like I love strangers. Complete strangers. And it’s probably the same for them. It’s super wild.

It’s December. Christmas is very important for my housemate so, everything looks dope as hell. Tree. Fireplace. Lights outside. Stockings, even for my favorite dog that I will have for a few days.

I don’t own shit, but I have access to a lot. It’s intense but I’m thankful. Onward.

My journey as a black man through the world, starting in a small village in France, kept me busy. I worked on myself slowly and relentlessly and now I look at men like, what the fuck have y’all done besides nothing.

Yesterday I had 2 friends swinging by. The woman showed up, texted, brought drinks. The man just ghosted me after sending me a screenshot on Friday that he’d put me in his calendar. It’s totally expected and that’s what’s wrong.

My friend in Paris is being harassed by her ex and a dude in her building. It’s totally expected.

The complete lack of support between dudes. Expected.

The news, obviously. From Offset to Riot. I read Hacker News, full of smart but quite if not full-on sociopathic dudes. Some comments are plain terrifying.

The rate of decent men is too damn low. It’s so disappointing. I don’t understand this race that keeps men going nuts: the race to a number. We don’t need this shit right now. For the next decades we need to chill and make sure to sustain stuff. Not burn down through natural resources or relationships. Sustain. Control. Subtlety. All that.

I often see women wondering “why can’t decent men talk to those idiots”. We did but also, we know that they know. They know what to do. It’s just different from what they think they should do, so they don’t do it.

I’ve never been afraid of acting different to make a difference. Ok, sometimes I did but I nut up and went through it. Like human beings have been doing for thousands of years. Do better my dude. Come on, mane.

First I wake up early to talk to my friend in France for a good hour. It’d been years.

Then I get ready to go to Beverly Hills.

I went back! It’s just. I can’t.

Then back home to get ready to go to South Central to drop off furniture. Maybe a little detour in Inglewood to jam? Not this time.

Back home, Spurs win. Potato salad. Design books. Dreams. Hope.