RE: LabCoatz - "Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola (It Took Me A Year)"

Well shit, guess I'm doin science now!

Materials & Tools

Overall, all the materials were easily sourced via online stores, and local brick and mortar stores, and I was able to get more than what I really needed to easily do this for around $500 dollars all in. You could do this with minimal equipment for closer to $300. You could shave of even more by only buying the bare minimum for 1 batch, however many of the ingredients will stretch very far and you'll be left with a surplus. So if you're on a tight budget, you could only get what is needed, and buy up the rest later (with the savings you'll make not buying name brand coca-cola.)

I began by ordering the materials listed in the YouTube video I didn't think I could source locally, along with some tools, the most important of which being the Micro-Pipette (more on that later) and while waiting for it all to arrive (see image);

I started looking for what I could find locally. I was able to find many of the essential oils from a local "Health Store" (your typical homeopathic affair). Noteably, I was able to get many of the more mundane essential oils cheaper than I could get them on amazon! So don't forget the value of your local brick and mortar stores.

I still had to fetch some of the ingredients from my local grocery store. Specifically: Vegetable Glycerin, carbonated water, vanilla extract, and a scale (since some of the materials were weighed out in the specification, instead of volume based.) The vegetable glycerin was found in the pharmacy section, and very obscure. As for carbonated water the plan was originally to look for a SodaStream device. Which uses cartridges of CO2 to carbonate any liquid you can fit in the pressure vessel. For whatever reason, those were nowhere to be found, which was weird because I've seen them on store shevles everywhere for years. However, we were able to find 1L bottles of carbonated water, labelled 'Seltzer Water' which sufficed nicely. Quick aside, I wasn't sure of the differences between seltzer water, club soda, and tonic water. Turns out they are very different and this is why reading ingredient labels are important, since that actually tells you what you are buying (most of the time.) Vanilla Extract was no problem. As for the scale however, the only scales I was able to find where kitchen scales.Kitchen scales are not precise enough for this, and after checking online it turns out most people refer to precise scales as "Mass Scales" which while funny, also lead me to where I could find one locally.

Thanks to relaxing drug laws, you can find a wide selection of very precise scales at your local tobacco or otherwise store of consumable degeneracy. In a small strip mall store front there were 20 different models to choose from, neat.

Now I had all the materials and tools I needed and was ready to begin!

-Sir

Well, it's been a bit, but here I am again.

I've been struggling for a while, feeling disconnected and uncertain, questioning, unsatisfied. Everywhere I look there are conflicting opinions, about everything really, but in this case about AI. That's what's been burrowing under my skin for a while.

While the general topic of "guru's" and "pundits" and the click bait "you won't believe this" crowd is the undercurrent of my current feelings about the AI-geist, I don't feel like diving into that right now, if for no reason other than sparing my own hairline fracturing sanity.

Frankly:

I hate hearing about AI, I hate talking about it, I hate that I'm writing this. But. Like a bubblegum pop tune cranked out by corpo chosen child, it's looping and I need to get it out.

The novelty is over; the day 2 years ago I could prompt a silly poem out to the amusement of myself and family, more suprised that such a thing can exists, has all but vanished. Replaced by an army of apologists trying to convert me, some more literally than others. Like the circus of the past showing off a farm animal that can seemingly count, it was amusing at first. Now imagine people gathering around it to ask it the biggest questions we've yet to answer, trying to reconfigure our society to make a place for their beloved.

Along would come the skeptics to keep things in check, testing, prodding, exposing. Some would eschew their findings, plunge their heads in the sand, but most would see the proof and walk away. For the topic of AI though, the church is more devout, and the skeptics fewer, more drowned out. A general misunderstanding and avoidance. That I can get, it's hard to understand how these things really work, all the explanations seem too simple to believe, like there's more to know but no ones talking about it.

It's like god, people are way more inclined to speak of what following a god does for you, why you should, the benefits, the cautions against resistance. No one wants to talk mechanics, like what is god made of? Where literally is it? Bah, that's not important. AI-apologists are the same, none of them bother spending their time with how it works, only that they insist it does, that it will change your life. Revolutionize!

And Yet.

I've not seen it. To this day, no one has shown me something that actually works.

I feel like I'm losing my mind.

Those who want me to use it, instead of showing me their creations, something convincing me, instead want to put that burden on me. "JuSt YoU tRy It!"

No. Fuck you. Fuck you, you FUCKING JUNKY!

I WILL NOT try your spice melange.

I WILL NOT become an apologist, deskill myself, debase myself, become an addict!

I'm even done telling people, "oh you know, it might be a useful tool, in the right hands" because that's fucking true of anything, and I'm done having ANY part in being an apolgist. If you come hocking your bullshit to me, I don't care, not interested, can't be bothered. I want REAL shit. If you used AI to make it, I don't care, I really don't, I don't want to hear about it.

I also can't help but notice the people that are the *most* excited to tell me about what their AI-god can do are those who didn't measure up, who've shown disdain for me, for anyone who has a genuine skill, dare I say even been jealous that I know the magic words to tell the computer to make it go. That I am somehow priviledged or gifted with some hidden divine knowledge, while they were unjustly shown the line for the peons. All because they couldn't be bothered to do the unthinkable: read a book, try, stick to it, learn, grow, self-improve.

P A T H E T I C

Because if you can do it so easily, SO CAN EVERYONE ELSE. Turns out making slop is fuckin easy, and instead of the tides rising, more mud will be drug into the harbor, sticking you even further into the quicksand box you're constructing for yourself.

I have lost all sympathy for the apologiests, the ladders are being pulled up. All that they've done is given every reasons for the ships to leave the harbor. All the incentive to know better, be better, to self-improve has been thrown to the wind, skattered, replaced with slop factories catering to the quick fix junkies to craft their own little mud huts. For those who really do want to be better, I feel for you, it's going to get harder, you'll have to swim farther, through more muck, unlike what I had to, there's no map I can give you.

But if you get to the boats, we'll pull you up, if you can get here somehow.

-Sir

That's not in my job description

"That's not in my job description!"

One of my least favorite sentances to hear, at work or otherwise. What situation did you just conjure in your head? When I talk to people IRL regarding this their mental scenario usually results in them saying something to the effect:

• "Managers are the devil and always trying to get us to do anything they want."
• "Kids these days don't know what real work is, and are always trying to skate by."
• "Ha ha, uh oh! Shit's going down."

Here's my nuance. Job descriptions serve 2 main purposes:

1. To advertise the job in a requisition, and attract the right people.
2. To protect people from termination when they are asked to do something outside the scope of what they are hired for.

I don't think anyone would disagree with the first one, it's the second one where the nuance lives.

I believe that when you are hired to do a job, you are actually hired to help a company complete it's objectives (and if it's a good company the primary objective is to make money), initially within the capacity described by the job description. That's ultimately why anyone should be paid, to do something the payer wants them to. You can always decline to do what's being asked, and if you do the payer is perfectly within their right to just not pay you. Normally, this is fine. If you are hired to paint walls and the company is paid money for painted walls then you and your company are perfectly aligned.

Now what happens when that original alignment changes? Now the company is going to make money not just painting walls, but now there's some money to be made painting cabinets. Once all the walls are painted your manager comes to you and says, "hey, we also need to paint those cabinets." At this point if the phrase comes out, it's annoying (assuming there's not a history of this situation.) There are usually only a handful of scenarios that could be happening:

1. You don't know how.
2. You know that doing that job is worth more.
3. You just don't want to (it's not worth it to you!)

And for each of those scenarios there's a much better way to handle them besides thowing out the annoying way.

1. "I don't know know how."
2. "Am I going to be paid the going rate for that job?"
3. "I'm not willing to take on that extra task."

All of the above answers are totally fine because they refine the situation and actually communicate what you think should happen next. I would not fault anyone for saying any of those, and if any of those result in some retaliation then fuck that manager. They are bad at their job. If you get fired then, as I said before, that's how the job description can aid you in a wrongful termination suit.

Full disclosure: I've been on both sides of this coin. I've had shitty managers trying to push me into doing work I didn't sign up for, didn't want to do, and definitely wasn't being compensated for. I've also been that manager that has some one off work come up and a person who's skills I hired them for weren't useful in that moment and try to put them to it. In both situations, if the other person isn't listening and not wanting to actually discuss what they think we should do, then fuck them.

At the end of they day, people gather at their jobs in the joint pursuit of making money, and if you're not even willing to try and do that, and instead want to just gum up everyone else spouting unproductive phrases, then you sure aren't acting like you're there to make money, and I think you should fuck off so the rest of us can.

-Sir

Titles

Have you ever heard someone tell you their job title and it occurs to you that you have no idea what the fuck that person actually does? If you haven't try these on for size:

How does this happen? I get the feeling that some of these titles are cooked up by managers trying to give the illusion of greater compensation or respect without actually giving more (money or fucks). They'll do that as either a flacid attempt to keep a good employee around, or to fool new recruits into a job. Both things are shitty, but sadly work so often. You see people stay at or start poorly compensated jobs on good marketing and psychology tricks all the time, I could write a whole thing on that alone. Some of these titles are just self-importance (fart-smelling nonesense.) Which, as insufferable is, I've grown to just pity at this point and it's ultimately harmless. I also think there is a group of people who think it very important to use language to mask their personal feelings about jobs some would say are 'lesser.'

There's a big difference between looking at a someone workin a job, and thinking "man, I would hate to do that job" and "I'm too good for that, it's a peasants job." To those in the first camp: I feel you, nothing wrong with that. For the second camp: you can go fuck yourself. No one is too good to do any fuckin job. Overqualification is a thing and there are some jobs where single or elite individuals have a bigger singular impact, it's just a fact. But just because you can do jobs that pay more, are more exclusive, and/or have broad sweeping impact doesn't mean you're too good to do a job that doesn't have any of those characteristics.

I'm talking to you: managers, hr, 'leadership', C-suite, etc (oil). Occupations that have a higher concentration of 'too-gooders.' I'm not a commie, or even a socialist, but those types, especially the 'workers of the world unite' or union types I can't help but feel like the burning hatred they have is in part a response due to this attitude. Titles should merely describe what a person does; actually fulfill meaningful purpose.

-Sir

Spoken Posts & Replies

It bothers me when I'm talking to someone and everything they say comes out like a fuckin facebook post or tweet or whatever-the-fuck social media void shout. Laden with prefaces and dislaimers. Shit like:

In my opinion, based on my lived experience, while there are so many good movies, many of which are groundbreaking in their own ways, personally, Toy Story isn't that bad, right?

Holy. Shit. Could there be a way to say something less commital? sincere? It's cowardly. You aren't in court; on the record. You're allowed to just speak your mind without fear of aggressive repercussion, especially if you're talking to people who know you. If you're not, then find better friends. I understand knowing your audience and when you post online you are on the record, speaking to the world, but in real life you aren't and there's no reason to talk like it.

I've even be guilty of this in the past and I hate it. It's like there isn't a benefit of the doubt anymore, or tacit agreements around a presumption of sincerity and well meaning. If someone says, "Toy Story sucks" that's obviously just their opinion. However, some would think that person said, "Toy Story sucks, and if you like it you suck and are wrong and I hate you and wish harm on you and everyone who likes you" taking great offense, like it's a personal attack. I don't know how much tribalism plays into this, since the response is almost like you insulted someones family member or diety or whatever, but it's wack. You can like something without owing it your allegiance.

To be very clear, I don't have social media anymore. I think it's been a net negative overall. At best has very little impact on most peoples lives, but most of the time leaves people worse off. I actively encourage people to ditch it. I'm all for people writing down what they think (as I'm doing right now) and sharing it without much care for who reads it. I'm fine with people talking to others they meet online. I'll probably go more in depth at somepoint and just discuss social media more in depth. For now though, I just want to be able to talk to people, not sit around and listen to people speak in post and replies.

-Sir

Doomsday Survivalarpers

I'm not a prepper, although I do own 1 copy of a magazine which is dedicated to it, the origin of which escapes me. I've also watched enough youtube videos tangential to the topic, and the circles I run in do have a tendancy from time to time overlap with the prepper crowd. I would also be remiss if I haven't indulged in some thought experiments about SHTF (shit hits the fan) or TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) scenarios. Not to date myself, but I do remember the 'zombie' era, where so many aspects of popular culture where crossed with a zombie theme. I digress.

I think the prepper tendancy is ultimately what you get when you combine some degree of paranoia/anxiety with a moderate to strong sense of individualism and self reliance. The self reliance does double duty though, as most of the folks I know who really harp on the merits of self reliance partially do so based on their feelings about the inability of others to be relied on, whether for their lack of trustworthiness or capability. To be fair, I do hold some of the skills required to be self reliant as meritous, although total and complete self-reliance is extremely limiting. So limiting in fact that I don't think it's worth it, and don't expect anyone to live up to that standard; including and especially myself. I also don't mean to shame preppers either, they aren't hurting anyone. You do you.

For prepper-larping folks though, I think the draw is the fun of trying to solve an extremely difficult problem with near infinite variables. It's like that game would you rather except in the prepper case the air of possibility (or plausibility) for the events coming true! It's generally more open ended for the others to opine on what they would do, or wouldn't. It's almost like a diceless ttrpg or chose your own adventure where the person proposing the scenario is the Dungeon Master, the others the players. The players in this case though are either playing together trying to craft a winning strategy. Unlike most other games though, this one gets to cloak itself in an air of responsiblity and legitimizes itself with the potential usefullness of the information disclosed.

I'll gladly out myself as a part time survivalarper, I enjoy the conversation and thought provoking situations. I'm also partial to rpgs, table top or otherwise, so I guess that's no surprise. I however do tend to find it funny when a group crosses over into survivalarping at some point, but then suddenly you find out not everyone realizes it.

-Sir

KFC Has Lost It

I used to like KFC, it was my great-grandfathers favorite. We used to get it and watch baseball back in my childhood. Many fond memories. I'm not immune to nostalgia, I doubt anyone truly is. However, I don't think I'm wrong when I remember eating crunchy fried chicken from KFC. I had some today and it sucked. The spices were there, but it wasn't crunchy, not in the slightest. Sadly this isn't a one time experience. It's been like this the last several times I've had it over the last few years. I don't get who would like it how it is!? I can't help but feel that KFC is riding on their nostalgia and marketing at this point. The Colonel must be spinning in his urn. If you're affiliated with KFC in anyway, you should feel ashamed.

-Sir

Prisons Shouldn't Be Punishments

When you hear that someone gets 6 months in prison, what do you think?

What about a year? two?

Would you be surprised if most people would say something akin to "well that's not that bad" or "it's only a year/two years?" That's without even knowing what the person did! It's disgusting. The closer someone is to the court system, the more desensitized they seem to be to the fact of what prison is.

Now imagine what it would be like for you to be picked up and put in prison for even 6 months. What happens to your stuff? Your place? Your job? Your friends, loved ones? Does anyone depend on you for anything? All of that is just too bad now. Hope you have enough money to keep up any ongoing payments you have. You won't be there. You'll be in a prison, filled with others ripped away from society. At least you get your "3 square 'meals' a day" and something that passes for a bed. The days tick by, and after what feels like an eternity, you're out! Provided you didn't get killed, or more likely assaulted. The impact of going to prison on a persons life will long outlive the original sentance.

Prisons are very cruel; to lock someone away, take their freedom. Not to say some haven't earned punishment, but why prison when alternatives exists? What place do prisons have in society? Prisons are the best way to handle one situation I can think of: those dangerous to others. If a person is a danger, have proved a willingness to actively be a danger to others, and most importantly would very likely do so again or can't be trusted not to, then we do need to seperate them from everyone else. That is in my mind the only place prisons hold in a justice system. The idea that prisons are places to "rehabilitate people" is farcical. I think that rehabilitation is possible, just not in prisons, especially those filled with the dangerous. How are you supposed to learn to be a functioning member of society when you are relegated to the least civil situations? I'll probably talk about the alternativesa some other time.

What I'll leave this with: Prison's shouldn't be punishments, they should only be for protecting everyone else.

-Sir

Lost Art of the Pastime

I really enjoy watching baseball, particularly Major League Baseball. "America's Pastime" as it's called. What even is a pastime? Well, it's something you do to pass the time, like a hobby. I'd like to split the hair though, because it's not a hobby, it is it's own thing.

Major League Baseball changed not so long ago. They added a pitch clock, like the shot clock in basketball, or the play clock in football, meant to speed up the game. I hate it. I liked that a baseball game could take 4, 5, even more hours, I didn't want it to go faster, to pass less time.

I say all this not to opine on baseball, but to make the point that I enjoy being able to pass the time; just ease along in the evenings. To me that's what's been lost, not just in baseball but as a cultural concept.

There are so many people talking about maximizing, optimizing every moment of every day to get the "most" out of it. Most what? All that talk scrapes up memories of listening to managers, and supervisors trying to get every bit of effort the can wring out of employees. What about the most joy? I know I'm not going to live forever, as much as I would like to, but if I had to spend all of that time in eternity making "the most" of it, I'm not sure I'd want to.

-Sir

Learning How to Vacation

I'm unsure how common it is to have to learn how to take a vacation, but it's something I've had to do. Growing up, my family, more specifically my dad, always made sure we "made the most" of every vacation we went on, which were few and far between. That meant getting up earlier than we normally would, having an absolutely packed to the gills itinerary to every attraction we don't have back home. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of memories made, but by the time noon rolled around for each of them the whole family was dog tired, squabbling, and ready to return to our rather modest accomodations (since why waste money on the place you're only meant to sleep.)

Even as an adult I would continue in this tradition, whenever I would finally bring myself to take a vacation, usually at the prodding of friends or family insessently reminding me how long it had been since my last vacation. I had just gotten tired of going on vacation. I didn't get what other people found so wonderful about them? The only thing I could fathom was that people were happy to get back to thier regular schedule after a pleasant disruption to see a bunch of things they haven't seen before. I've heard similar things about some brutal massages people get that make them nearly vomit right after, but are supposed to feel amazing the next day.

I feel real dumb to say it took me until very recently to put 2 and 2 together and realize that vacations (like anything else that's supposed to be enjoyable) don't have a one size fits all formula. Vacations can just be the things you like to do, but away from your house. F

-Sir

Learn to Code

Staring a few years ago and tapering off since you'd hear and see people saying it. Some genuinely, touting programming (coding) as a growing field for those feeling stuck in a dead end career, or a genuinely good option for those trying to find their earning potential. Other's sarcastically as a way to shame labourers who felt that they worked genuinely hard for very little, typically in 'undesirable' and 'unskilled' jobs who the speaker would never consider worthy of their time and likely held discontent for anyone who in their mind was dumb enough to do that work. People who sarcastically use/used the phrase to degrade others are shitbags as far as I'm concerned. Beyond the social context of the phrase, let's take it a face value: should you or anyone learn to code?

As always, no one can answer that question for anyone else. So instead of trying, I'm just going to enumerate some of my thoughts about it:

1. Programming isn't magic

   It's just a skillset around which jobs form like anything else.

   While I will admit it can feel magical, that feeling isn't unique. Cooking can feel just as magical, just in ways more familiar. Also like cooking the most magical things you can do with programming take a long time to learn, and even then only for a while until it becomes mundane. However as a counter point, the breadth of what can be considered programming is incredibly expansive. Everything from programming small bits of hardware (like robots/controllers) to massive platforms counts, and really don't have a ton of overlap.

2. It's a specialized profession

   Anyone who already works in a specialized field, especially one that is worried about being susceptible to changing demand, and is considering programming should know you are signing up for the same thing. Multiple times a year I hear developers (what programmers call themselves most often) commenting about the state of the 'market' for developers. This is because, like any other specialized profession, the demand for developers fluctuates. Factors that contribute are numerous but one more unique in it's application, ironically, is new technologies. When "AI" took the the mainstream there was a wide spread panic amongst developers more than others about how "AI is coming for your job." This isn't new and programmers seem to always be trying to program themselves out of a job, making tools that make tools a programmer would make, but easy enough for non-progammers.

3. You don't need a degree

   Fortunately, amongst specialized fields I've yet to find another where a degree or specific certifications aren't as commonly required. That being said though, those without will generally struggle in 2 primary ways: getting your first job and advancing late in the career (especially if changing employers.) I am unsure how much this trend will continue however. There are always forces other than the consideration of whether or not you could actually do the job at play in these situations, mostly from adjacent occupations where pieces of paper mean more (looking at you HR & business management folks.)

4. Approachability: Highly Variant

   While it's safe to say just about any skill will be very approachable for some and difficult to grasp for others, programming has a pretty wide gap. I'm not saying you can't study your way through it and learn as you go, but that battle would be constant, possibly for the life of your career. Getting pidgeon hole'd as a programmer can be devastating when the well dries up. Fortunately for those who have concerns about this, there are always a few wells that seem never ending, and focusing on technologies / programming languages which are considered 'legacy / big corporate' would help compensate.

5. Programming is misunderstood, often thankless

   On one end of the spectrum you have doctors, where everyone just knows it's very hard and very appreciated since they can 'save lives,' and on the other is programming where some people think it's hard but they don't know and you appear to just sit in front of a computer all day and can't seem to help with common problems (fix my printer bs). Most people don't actually know what a programmer does, or what it means to 'program' and it's difficult to explain it to them. Most of the analogies I've heard still seem to give wrong impressions and I think it has to do with just how unrelateable the things programmers actually work on are. This is getting worse as well, since the more surrounded by computers people are the less they understand them (which is a topic for another time.) Just know that if you decide to pursue programming, you are going to find yourself very misunderstood by those outside the field and the work you do won't be able to be appreciated by most, especially not proportionally to the effort you spend.

-Sir

Oil Changes

There are 2 kinds of people that participate in any kind of work. COGS Direct and COGS Indirect (COGS=Cost of Goods Sold), the names may change, but at the end of the day, there are those who directly contribute to the end product and those who don't. Examples of direct contributors are labourers, engineers, programmers, chefs, cooks, mechanics, baristas, doctors, nurses, lawyers, paralegals, etc. Generally, people who's effort or knowledge directly contribute to the accomplishment of the goal. Indirect COGS are favourably looked on as those in a supporting role, they focus more on assisting the Directs COGS in matters that don't require specific knowledge or effort of the main objective: book-keepers, assistants, human-resources, and sometimes (and more increasingly often) managers.

One analogy that I heard for this arrangement is "the gears and oil." Gears drive the motion, the oil protects and lubricates the gears. Pretty straight forward.

Not long after the company I worked for underwent layoffs. This wasn't the first time this happened, as there was a regular pattern of mismanagement (taking bad contracts, over extending expenses, etc.) This round of layoffs though revealed an interesting pattern: of those laid off, the majority weren't direct, they were indirect. At first this didn't make sense, in my field direct employees cost more. If there was a shortfall in income and we had to make cuts to balance out, it would initially make sense to limit the number of personel laid off by opting to layoff fewer better paid employees, than more lower paid employees. However, after giving it more thought it became fairly obvious. You can drive a car low on oil, but you can't drive a car missing a gear.

I have since updated a talk I give to people who are interested in joining my field. I emphasize the importance of growing and maintaining their core skill set, instead of only achieving a shallow understanding before pivoting into more indirect skills. After all, the more core you are to the main goal, and instrumental in it's achievement, the less likely you are to be apart of an oil change.

-Sir

Activation Energy

I love working. A job, a project, a hobby, you name it. I feel like it's my way of exercising some creativity. Some have an eye for photography, painting, sketching, the hands for sculpting, a mind for words, ears for music; for me its doing a project. I like the feeling of forming an idea, asking the repetative whys/hows. When I think about making something I like to think about the end product first, (what is it I'm making?) Then start figuring out whether to either buy/build some subcomponent, or perhaps some tool I'd need to make the process easier. You continue that process until you ultimately have everything accounted for then get started. The problem with many projects like this is financial cost. You can only make so much with your hands before you either need to buy a tool to harvest the resource you need (assuming it's available) and often times just buying the already processed material is cheaper. As an aside, sometimes its fun to just look at what you have lying around and see how you can give it purpose.

I think this is why I enjoy programming as much as I do. It wasn't my first choice of career or hobby, but it has a pretty big advantage of affordability. To anyone considering taking up programming btw, don't be fooled by anyone telling you that you need some nice computer, you don't. In fact, I would say working on a toaster with some linux distro OS will teach you far more.

Anyway. Programming is great because all you really need is a computer and some patience. The process of figuring out what you're wanting to build is pretty much the same, but unlike building something in the physical sense, most of the subcomponents if not all will just be other code. You can (and should) make your own tools as well in the form of other programs. In my mind making your own tools is an essential part of growing as a programmer, and something I see more common amongst those who are more elevated in the field.

The hardest part of all this so far is when it comes to actually starting. "Activation Energy" typically in a more scientific context, refers to the amount of energy that needs to be applied to a system to begin the desired reaction. The same applies to projects (or anything else in ones life really).

There has to be some amount of push to get the ball rolling, and I think it's the thing I struggle with the most.

There are sooo many reasons to not start the work. There might be surprise costs down the road, is there really enough time, what if I haven't thought of everything, is the juice worth the squeeze, and I can go on and on and on. You know what? I'll be damned if some of those aren't legitimate reasons to abort the project all together. But that is the whole point. If you decide it's not worth it, then atleast commit to not doing it! The problem in my mind with activation energy in the human sense really boils down to commitment. It's ok to think on a project (or any course of action really) and ultimately decide it's not worth it, but if that's the case then you have to move on. I myself, and so many others I know spend way too much time stuck in the activation energy limbo as though we are waiting for some divine intervention to finally push us over the edge, when in reality it's always been up to us, and there isn't a punishment for just not doing the thing we're contemplating.

If the mental reprieve from just letting it go isn't in and of itself a carrot, you also get to avoid it's complimentary stick: copium.

Just contemplating what to do itself can be like a drug. I've sat around people talking about either the good ole days, and how they could still make something of it if the tried, or how they've got the perfect idea for macguffin and can opine for hours on exactly what they would do or how awesome and capable it would be, each elaboration another toke of the copium pipe.
Much like the drug it's named after, copium is a spiral. The more you lay off starting something, the more you find yourself entertained by the idea of the thing, the less you actually do. The things we do have so much more staying power and long term gratification. The things we opine on and don't do have the greatest regret. Do youself a favor: shit or get off the pot. Do it, commit and struggle through, learning what you can, or save yourself and move on to something else.

-Sir

Pleasing Punk Aesthetic

What praytell the fuck even is punk?

A cursory search of definitions reveals some uncomfortable answers, none of which really on the nose of what I'm trying to write about. So to be more specific I mean punk as it originates from the punk-rock or punk subculture sense, which can be categorized very much as a counter-culture (anti- capitalism / corporatism / authoritarianism / consumerist / mainstream / etc). An argument could be made that punk culture is moreso defined by what it opposes than what it supports, which in my mind is exactly why it's persisted as long as it has.

The evolution of punk though is interesting. Most OG punks would likely decry the current state of things labelled 'punk' as too soft, sell out, dare I say even corporate (which absolutely needs to make a resurgence in popularity as derogatory term.)

So how does one really be punk now if old ideas about punk are being more adopted into the mainstream, and even being propped up and supported by the very institutions it once stood against (sweatshops cranking out your favourite punk band shirts, politicians claiming to be anti 'establishment', "punk-in spice lattes" at the corpo coffee chain, etc?) Naturally, schisms have formed all over the place since there are differences in opinions on how to even be punk. I would argue this is ultimately the fate of any ideology that defines itself more by what it opposes than what it actually stands for. I digress. One of the schismatic ideas is to reject anything that is genuinely appealling on it's own merits. Anything that can be liked can't possibly, really be punk. This would effectively reinforce the moving-target nature of what it is to be punk, with a weirdly Kant-esque slant. A crude reading of Kant suggests that anything you enjoy isn't truly morally good, as it's selfish by the fact of your own enjoyment. In this case the struggle of punk is front and center, which would be an effective tip-of-the-cap to it's roots.

Having grown up in a very christian environment (and subsequently rejecting it) I have a personal disdain for the idea of 'suffering for my salvation'. If my life has to suck for me to be punk, then I'm not, fuck it, not worth it. But still like the look, the music, some if not most of the ideas. It would be equally disingenuous for me to avoid adopting some of the aesthetic just because I don't want to be seen as a poser.

At the end of the day, being genuine, enjoying myself, and doing what the fuck I want is far more important to me.

-Sir

3rd times the charm

3 in a row, a streak is forming! *knock on wood* let's keep it goin!

I've been thoroughly enjoying the ritual of spending some time making updates to this site, beyond just the blog. Although, as to whether the blog or the code updates is more THAYR-uh-PYOO-tik remains to be seen.

Zock sent this article which I found very delightful, even if it's old news to anyone who might be reading this.
It hits me in a wierd way though.

You see, I find myself feeling disconnected yet to the 'folk internet' / archeo-tech crowd, but I did grow up with the internet, dialup, yadda yadda, ok boomer we get it. I can appreciate the enthusiasm and the aesthetic, and to a degree I find it intellectually intriguing, but I can't bring myself to get wet at the idea of how small the RAM is on a personal computer from before I was born. I don't have much nostalgia for trolling old threads or tearing up IMs late into the night or some MMO.

I also look at social media users (who I don't count myself a member) with growing pity. I did the whole social media thing for some time, starting with Facebook back in yonder days and grew into a few other platforms after feeling decidedly cringe enough to self exile. I just didn't get it. I took the facebook prompt's third person perspective seriously. Actually writing what I was genuinely feeling, thinking, doing. Not a care about what other people might think was cool about it (or more realistically not).

To be fair I suppose I still don't, atleast not from the users 'appropriate' point of view. I've seen too many skinner box design sessions (first hand) to feel any excitement about signing up to slobber myself at the carefully concocted clout coins. fuck all that!

While I do still feel somewhat like I'm drifting the void, the gravity well of the folk net is stronger. If for no other reason than I just like the people better, we get on better. Time will tell if enthusiasm is really contagious, or if the good-times high is just enough to get me coming back for more.

Either way, I'm feelin good about this, and I'm going to keep chasin that feelin.

-Sir

Fuckin Firefox.

Ok maybe that's a bit harsh...

I'm coming down off of a frustrating afternoon working on this site of all things, which I had thought would be a fun use of my evenings. And while it has been fun, there's nothing like discovering some bizarre quirk, which in this case is all the more frustrating given the depth of left field this arose from.

So as you may or may not know, you can get/set what's between the tags of an HTML element directly in JS.

<openTag> this stuff here </closeTag>

with some code like this...

const elem = document.getElementById('someID'); elem.innerText = 'blah blah';

I'm in fact doing so on this very page as a part of emulating a terminal feel. This worked great... in Chrome. However, Zock informed me I actually crashed his PC by running out of ram when he opened it in Firefox. WTF???

At first I thought it was my recursive calls to setTimeout so I went through the trouble of rewriting everything to use setInterval which I actually like better, since it feels more like I'm queuing up print jobs when I set up these 'typy terminals', but alas no, still crashing.

WHAT

THE

FUCK!

On a whim, and seeing that the DOM was growing to multiple Gigs in the profiler I changed the elem.innerText updates to elem.innerHTML... presto. No more crashing!

Why does this matter? No fuckin clue. I have some reading to do, until then, fuck Firefox, this seems really dumb.

-Sir

welp...

This is my first post here. Not sure what I'll do with it. I can say that zock is to blame/thank (tbd) for this. I've got a good feeling about it, for now it's way better than normy-web!

-Sir