Category: Me Myself&I

Not long after you’ve started to eat it:

Spit on it.

And then dig back in while making eye contact with her, sniffing a bit deeper. Growling lower.

I think that’s good.

The software is on a computer, the printer is next to it.

To print, I need the software to be “paired” with the printer.

To do that, I need a mobile app to scan a QR code on the printer’s little screen, to get a six-digit code.

To do that, I needed to log into the mobile app with an account.

(breathe Harold, breathe)

I did all that, and the mobile app couldn’t scan the QR code due to crazy glare on the little screen.

After some back and forth, it did work, but at the same time I updated the printer’s firmware, which displays the six-digit code on the little screen without the need for the mobile app and that stupid QR dance.

Sigh.

The printer is now paired and I’m thinking that I can now print. Hell I can!

Both computer and printer are on the internet, but they can’t seem to talk to each other.

I look at some help online and it’s a bit of a nightmare, there’s a lot of people having issues.

If you’re at home on a home router, no problem. If you’re using professional grade routers and stuff, it doesn’t work due to network port restrictions, security and so forth.

In the end I used a laptop as a hotspot, connected both desktop computer and printer to it and now they can talk to each other, and I can print.

I still giggle at my imagination being printed out irl

This is completely fucking insane. A simple USB-A cable to my computer would have made everything a breeze and save me hours of troubleshooting. The printer is fabulous though. I can understand the will to offer a choice for people to print from anywhere but jfc, this is a professional tool getting hot (220°C/428°F). I’m not printing from miles away and I’m pretty sure most people don’t either.

Why would I need a mobile app with badges and followers and “favorites” to print? Young folks might also just want to print. Stop the abusive gamification and stupid engagement tricks, respect customers!

Computers (and 3D printers and digital devices) are wonderful tools. They are not lifestyle.

Anyway, it’s working now and I won’t update shit. Printing!

I was reading this book about Pier Luigi Nervi. After finishing it, I emailed the author to let him know that his book was amazing, thanking him very much for writing it.

He, —an architecture professor with a long career— replied within a few hours to say thank you very much as well. That’s it.

The beauty of email. Our quick conversation was private, genuine, asynchronous, without any company extracting any data (or the least possible, hopefully). The conversation could become public with a screenshot or printed out, but there’s nothing here: hey, thank you for your work! Hey thank you for your thank you! Humans sharing positivity in the most concise digital way possible.

It’s pure. It’s simple. It works. There’s no need for vultures in the middle of communication, y’all.

I also just realized: I’ve had the best conversations with family, friends or internet friends via email. By and large.

For people outside of the US, here’s an example of how we’re not doing well locally.

We voted over Prop 6 here in California. We get a little guide that is very well done and in which we learn what the prop is about:

PROPOSITION 6 RESTORES HUMAN DIGNITY BY ENDING FORCED LABOR, WHICH CONSTITUTES SLAVERY AND VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS.

Pretty clear, pretty obvious what to vote for. Even better:

68-0 in the Assembly, 33-3 in the Senate. Both major political parties are saying “yes, let’s stop slavery in prisons” together, which is rare these days. The voting guide allows for counter arguments, and there was none:

Results? Well, Californians voted in majority to keep slavery in prisons.

In a democratic state, with a democrat governor, with people talking about community and God’s work or whatever all the time. Something that should have been like 90% Yes ended up being 53% No. Get the fuck outta my face.

I live surrounded by psychopaths sure, but more important, if we can’t even pass obvious things like that, it’s hard to have hope for issues where we disagree.

Couple this with a new government filled with people who have the smallest range you can possibly imagine, we’re about to waste four years while a bunch of ghouls are going to profit as much as possible. And of course, this gives ammunition to dictatorships around the globe. “oh you want democracy? Look at the citizens of California who just voted against basic human rights in 2024 lmaooo”

Y’all need to get your shit together quick.

wtf

It might be nostalgia, or the oversaturation of displays in my face all the time or both, but I miss the experience of going to the movies.

That feeling when you didn’t know much what you were going to see, besides a bit of the plot and a movie poster that you would see on bus stops and a few billboards.

Finally sitting down in the dark, excited. The sound being huge, but not loud.

The experience of being able to hear a pin drop in the room after some great dialog on screen.

Being at the movies without food, drinks, phones, conversations. Just pure watching and absorbing. I’ve experienced that.

It’s fucking magical.

My hope for the future is to have some movie theaters holding votes for people to go see 80s and 90s movies -so much slower and tasty- with rules allowing this full experience.

Getting in the Waymo, smiling at the screen and getting back home without doing a thing, will be glorious.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling fantastic. Practicing, learning, good health.

I’m reading a hypnotic book about Pier Luigi Nervi, an Italian structural engineer who created phenomenal architecture, like this one above. Reinforced concrete, prefab. Beautiful. What’s so exciting is that his workflow validates all kinds of “universal” laws: he used real life prototypes a lot which is much better than calculations (real beats virtual most of the time), costs and constraints led him to being smarter, finding solutions that he otherwise would have not find (this happens through human history all the time). Scarcity often helps.

1957. Mesmerizing, isn’t it? 58.5-meter (190-foot) span. Those diamonds were prefab and connected together with a crane. 1,620 of them. 30 days to complete this magnificent roof!! It is still in perfect shape today. Breaking tasks in smaller tasks always works.

Pier mixed thorough engineering with intuition, melting structural demands and aesthetics all together while being cheaper than competition AND on time or early in completion of those giant projects. An inspiration.

I’m fascinated by concrete domes and structures these days with my HHH. The idea of bending concrete for my ceiling, reducing the amount of material necessary thus reducing cost, and making it more beautiful by having a gentle curve instead of a boring horizontal, is getting stronger in my mind. Thanks to Mr. Nervi, I know that this is very much possible.

It went so quiet around 10pm. A different kind of quiet evening and start of a night. I kind of knew what that meant.

I do not understand what journalists are doing besides wasting everyone’s time. They interact on a dude’s platform (who they hate) when they should absolutely not fucking do that. And they keep doing it! Social media is the purest drug for all those folks.

It’s disappointing that most people still don’t understand that presidents have basically no say in the economy, which is a gigantic system led by a few oligarch who own all politicians. The “media” cannot help to decipher that as they are on social media drugs 24/7 for crumbs of engagement.

The only way to get people to turn the other way, is to go hard on UBI (first time it was proposed, 1797; it’s fucking 2024). Dems should be real about this instead of ordering another trial for 300 folks that will say “yeah, people love that shit when they can live a decent life, who would have thought???” How come they can’t do that when that would absolutely make red people go “OK. I’m listening.”? Instead it’s complacency and condescendence towards people scraping their finances to buy some food. It can’t work and it didn’t.

Inflation be damned. It’s odd to talk about this as if it mattered. No one can actually define it in an easy way! Inflation is incredibly complicated to calculate and rests on many variables, some being outside of the US. The big issue is that inflation hurts most people while wealthy people can always deal with price increases. I still don’t see how printing money directly for people who need it right now, is bad. It’s not.

This election is another argument about how for the past ten years people living more and more in their phones, in bubbles of lies and complacency, has been destroying democracy faster than anything prior. Leveraging pettiness to levels of toxicity never seen before. Tons of engineers working at those tech companies know that very well. We’ll have “memoirs” about that at some point.

How come Mexico, a rather conservative and religious country just voted in unprecedented numbers and virtually at 90% for an atheist, feminist, scientist woman? I don’t know, but I love them for that and things can change. And they will in America. But first, four years of pain. And probably a good decade at the very least, to get the supreme court back to looking supreme. Sigh.

I saw it with the Aces and WNBA playoffs, but also saw it far too often in the past few years in the NBA as well: very questionable calls from referees, calls that are changing the course of the game.

Betting. Betting has ruined everything about games and sports, and continues to do so. What’s at stake (tons of money) and the accompanying incentives (cheating) are too strong.

Oh well! More time to dive into other fun stuff in life.