h. Play

When it comes to the importance of RSS to me, it is moral, almost spiritual. That might sound like I’m overstating it, but hear me out.

There is lots of interesting content out there. For an individual to develop themselves, they need free reign to information. RSS allows and enables an individual’s learning about reality (on the web).

The reverse is mediated information. Corporations/governments would rather steer you to where they want you to go – to the sandboxed areas, the paddling pools of the internet. Many people think the internet is just youtube, facebook, instagram and twitter. These are social mediating platforms.

RSS is probably the most anarchic technological development of the internet we have had. More important than crypto or mobile phones. Continued unmediated access to the information you are interested in, without being distracted is what every individual should be striving for.

No wonder Google bent over backwards to try to kill it.

Truth.

It was making some noise, recently. So I went to see my mechanic.

“When was the last time you did an oil change?”

Me: “Uh… Years?”

Him:

No oil gauge to find, he opens the oil tank:

It’s not oil. It’s like pudding. The engine is probably clogged like crazy, hence the noise and shaking.

And so I go on my bicycle to go buy some oil flush that he doesn’t have in stock. He did almost three flushes.

He kept repeating “that’s insane that it didn’t break. You’re lucky.”

Suzuki Gang! Sorry, it’s just that there are three identical cars like mine around and we wave at each other sometimes. Anyway, the car is now back to purring nicely. And yes, in six months, oil change. I’m so sorry.

(I think I avoided the worst by driving rather smoothly on surface streets, stressing my engine the least possible basically)

Japanese KitKats! My reviews:

Black KitKat
Unctuous. Rich. Strong.

Milk Tea KitKat
Surprising. Violet. Smooth.

Green Tea KitKat
Whimsical. Bamboo. Quick.

Cookies&Cream KitKat
Amusing. Summer. Exciting.

Caramel Pudding KitKat
Soothing. Vibrant. Light.

There’s a Lemon & Salt Kit Kat that I’m trying to taste, but I’m reaching and being a bit greedy here.

Those above were delicious though.

I looked at that hill and village over there so many times when I was a kid during summer vacation. Anxious of the future, of my future. Kind of knowing already that it would be quite different from my cousins, his/her friends and others.

I’d be proud and yelling if I knew then what’s going on for me now.

From our bed and breakfast a couple miles away from that first picture. One of the rare hour of sun I had while in France. That was nice.

I’m wondering about how they dealt with customers going from a world without smartphones to a world with them. How did it change their lives, habits, patterns? Going through the pandemic?

I’m wondering about how it feels like to move a giant vehicle, empty most of the time. Just driving around over and over. How does it feel at the end of the day or of the week? Do you feel like doing a bullshit job? How do you feel about people after dealing with customers and cars all day?

It is so exciting for me to see that what I imagined and pondered on, is real.

Seeing a brother living in a 3D printed house, as I plan to do, makes me feel so giddy. That my layout can be printed just like I printed it at small scale, makes me smile to no end. Game changer.

I also have optimized the use of built-in furniture (those will be 3D printed as well) so much that the only things I’d need to move in would be appliances, electronic devices, mattresses and pillows. Dassit.

Meanwhile the more I talk to homeowners the more I realize that yes, I am right to go for a rather small house and few rooms. That yes, attics and basements (for storage) are a waste of everyone’s time. Sell that shit. Give it away. I can’t believe my parents and I were sweating in the attic to remove 50 years old paperwork a couple weeks ago. That stuff should have been burning in the fireplace at least 20 years ago.

Don’t dream big, you’re going to be disappointed. Dream small, and execute.

I’m rather big on driverless cars.

Waymo averages over 10,000 trips a week in Phoenix now. Cruise and Waymo are all over San Francisco. I see them mapping Los Angeles all the time these days.

Like I predicted in my post above, people are having sex in those cars, which is super cool except for the next rider I guess but we’ll figure out some social protocol.

Sure, slurping on this and that, but I can only imagine the beautiful romance of a couple meeting through a driverless car, going away from families, just looking at each other and smiling while cruising to a safe haven at 35mph, safe. Knowing that they can order a ride back anytime, 24/7. No questions asked. Just hop and go.

That is magic and completely new to humanity.

I feel like people are going to understand how ugly all those high rise buildings are. It’s so much better to see the sky, trees and humans in between.

I also feel like this is a reality here in America, but never really will in Europe. Those roads are brutally small and convoluted. Roundabouts are chaotic as hell. I almost did 1000 km (600 mi) in France in the past two weeks, analyzing. It’s so much easier to drive in America. The grid system is perfect for robocars, no doubt.

That is going to create another divide in the world, I’m afraid.

The news:

The book open on my table:

We know how to sustain life and live nicely in triple-digit weather without A/C, y’all. We’ve been knowing this for hundreds of years. In Phoenix, you need to basically live in caves with 50” thick walls to be well in summer. It’s known.

The inertia between knowledge and use of knowledge, hacked by capitalism and its money-focused goals, drives me fucking nuts. Same with the greed of people not understanding that living in a desert in a room chilled at 23°C/74°F with the help of a machine and barely any insulation, can’t last forever and should have never happened in the first place.

One more time, filthy rich moguls: forget about the moon and Mars. Please make prefab sustainable, passive A/C-less habitats customized by weather and start deploying those, goddamn.

A/C is unsustainable, burning a huge amount of energy while heating up every single roof running engines 24/7. It’s complete madness. It is a juicy business for all the wrong reasons.

You should move up north if you can’t take the heat, have kids and want to leave them an OK planet.

I’m playing basketball and I see this man walking through the courts with this young, grey male pit bull on his side.

As the court next to mine had just been used by a couple with two dogs, the grey puppy stops and sniffs around. The man keeps walking and turns around a corner.

I figure that he’s waiting on his dog. The dog keeps sniffing and after five minutes I’m wondering what the owner is thinking, but OK!

I kind of forget about all that as I’m focusing on my physical activity.

The dog comes closer to me, but stays at bay, still sniffing. I’m done and packing. As I leave the court this dog comes right by me, walking as if we’d been together since forever. Mmmh.

I don’t give and didn’t give him anything. No eye contact, no petting, no calling. I’m about to turn the corner, looking after his owner but I don’t see anyone.

The dog goes on a tangent and toward some parking lot, while sniffing more. I’m relieved. I’m thinking this is over.

I’m walking on the sidewalk with my music on, knowing that the dog went the opposite way towards some people and activities. I start forgetting about him. He doesn’t.

I hear a little dog gallop behind me and I’m thinking that he’s well groomed, has a collar and that this is getting really weird.

Again, he gets right by me and we’re walking toward my car together as if we’d been doing this for a minute. All I can think of is that I’ll need to be smart about opening the door because I have a feeling that he’d jump in the back in a heartbeat.

Again, no eye contact, no energy given to him. He’s just quiet, trying to get my attention looking up with his ears pointing out to the back of his head, relaxed. No whining, no barking. I’m stretching next to my grey car and he’s sniffing the back of my hand now. He’s waiting by the door, patiently.

I have to fake a walk away from my car to go back to it and enter quickly. The dog stays on the sidewalk, a bit confused. I’m sorry, man!

I drive away looking in my rear view mirror, seeing him being a good boy, going back to sniffing around. I like to think that he had a sense that I would take good care of him, that he could feel it. Because I would, except that it’s not the right time for me to have a dog.

May you find a home that takes care of your cute face, boy.

The view from my childhood bedroom window these days.

I used to sit there every night to reflect. Trees and vegetation were not that thick. As the house sits on a small hill, I could see pretty far out.

The wild thing is that although it looks secluded, traffic in the street right after those trees has increased so much that it feels a lot less private than before. Cars every second.

Today sometimes there’s traffic jam right there. It used to not even be a possibility.

When people pompously say “change is inevitable” I’m always thinking “well if it implies losses reassess that stupid change, how about that”.