Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Ineffective god

I guess I should’t complain about my room getting into the low 70s in temperate when there’s people out there in spaces reaching into the high 80s. San Francisco is experiencing an unseasonal heat wave this week, and we’re all just trying to keep cool as best as possible. If I lived in a place that gets up to high 80s indoors during heat waves, an AC unit is a must-have purchase. The extortionate PG&E bill is worth the ability to fall asleep.

The 2026 World Baseball Classic championship game was last evening. Venezuela defeated the United States in a classic pitching duel. Can we call it just revenge for America kidnapping the Venezuelan President from earlier this year? As much as some of you want to keep separate sports and politics, the sports gods often times have a perverse sense of humor. Every time Great Britain faces Argentina in football should be for ownership of the Falkland Islands.

Speaking of god, it was weird to me seeing Venezuelan players thanking for god for their triumph. God was with you? It doesn’t logically make sense. If your Christian god is supposedly all benevolent and all loving, why would he favor one team over another? Surely there are many god-fearing believers rostered on team USA. Did god flip a coin and decided to give one team the push? Maybe it’s about the cumulative amount of prayers…

If all glory is to god, then so is all failure. To say otherwise means god abandons you right before the moment of loss, absolved him of any responsibility. An omnipotent deity is actively picking winners and losers. His almighty love is not granted the same equally. Maybe the ancients got it correct in terms of making sacrifices. It seems logical that there’s a balanced scale where the good and the bad equals out. If we ourselves create the bad - killing animals and people as tribute - then we’d receive only good in return.

A truly benevolent god would eliminate all suffering and negativity from this world. Partly why I am drawn of zen buddhism is that it doesn’t hide the reality we can all see: life is suffering.

A moment's notice

I read in the local newspaper the lone surviving passenger in a fiery Tesla Cybertruck crash back in 2024 is finally officially suing Tesla. The lawsuit puts the blame on the manufacturer for creating a death trap. Tesla vehicles famously use electrically actuated door handles, rather than the physical mechanical linkage. Federal safety laws mandate a manual failsafe, but inside Tesla cars the backups are rather hidden. One can understand that in a fiery panic, one isn’t in the best of mind to locate the functioning backup.

Certain model doesn't have manual door releases at all in the rear passenger compartment!

The Cybertruck crash is an absolute tragedy. Notwithstanding the utter lack of wisdom by the teens in getting into a 1,000 horsepower 6,000 pound missile whilst under the influence. At 3:00 AM in the morning. Were the teens in any other normal combustion vehicle, I think they’d all survive. Mangled, sure, but very much alive. A normal car would have had physical door releases that actually work, no matter if the vehicle is in a blaze.

I don’t trust it, these electric actuators. It’s unsettling to be at the mercy of a computer and electricity. Besides, is Tesla even saving any production costs? Rules dictate a secondary mechanical backup. There’s essentially two releases for every door. That doesn’t seem very economical from a cost-of-goods standpoint.

This is why my car is a Volkswagen Golf from 2019. It’s got mechanical everything, down to the emergency brake handle.

I feel bad for the sole survivor. Not only does he have to deal with the long healing process, but he’s also suing (the estate of) his former friend - the driver who is now dead. His entire life trajectory upended by a moment’s folly of late teenager. Who amongst us hasn't done some stupid shit in our time? At that age, no one ever thinks of the downside in the moment.

Patience, young Padawan

Ever since I purchased my new-to-me 2019 Volkswagen Golf GTI last October, I’ve been doing small jobs here and there every weekend. The downside of buying a used car is that there’s bound to be existing blemishes and inconsistencies. The upside is obviously you save a bit of money buying second-hand. Though I didn’t really have a choice: if I wanted a seventh generation GTI, used is the only game in town.

I’ve no interest in the LCD-screen festooned eight generation GTI currently on the market. Car interiors should have physical buttons and dials, and I will gladly die on this hill.

In the process of fixing up a car, you kind of realize things about yourself. I found out that I tend to dive in without a care. Rambo-ing it. Leroy Jenkins. The consequence of this is that I’ve broken a few parts that I wouldn’t have otherwise. No big deal in the grand scheme of things because thankfully the Golf platform has parts a plenty - VW has sold millions of them. Nevertheless, I’ve learned that I got to be a lot more patient.

The enthusiasm stems from me wanting to get the job done as quickly as possible. Because I am chasing that sense of accomplishment after the work is finished. There’s nothing more grating to me than leaving in the middle of a project to tend to the human stuff. Like going to bathroom, eating, or going to bed. My personality is such that open-ended loops are crushingly stressful for me.

Owning the GTI have slowly weened me off that affliction. Because there’s nothing I can do about waiting for a replacement part to arrive. It’s already bad enough that I broke it in the first place, but then I get to stew in my incompetence and impatience. I’m not rich at all to pay for overnight shipping. Ever so slowly I am learning to tolerate - hopefully reach peace someday - open-ended loops.

Owning brand new cars is way less stressful for sure. But then I wouldn’t have learned a lesson about myself.

Liquid gold

Say what you want about the ongoing Iran war (or not war), but it’s doing major devastation to gasoline prices. Those of us in California suffer even more due to a dependence on imported crude, and State environmental refining laws. Didn’t this President promise to lower petrol prices? Candidates in the CA governor race should promise to do something about this…

Thankfully I don't have a car commute. What I won’t enjoy however is the bustling lines at Costco gasoline - typically the cheapest available. I never get gas at my local Costco, but unfortunately it’s all filtered through the same road. The logjam of cars waiting for a fill up will absolutely hamper shoppers that only wish to park and get into the warehouse. This will be the reality until the war (or not war) is over.

First world problems, eh?

Speaking of privileged problems, I’ve been though many a Keurig device since 2020. For some reason, the K-Slim model that I buy cannot seem to last. And I think I’ve found the reason: the control panel is right on the lid. A lid that opens and closes constantly for loading and disposing of coffee cups. This inevitably causes irreparable stress on the electrical connections. The one I currently have has an annoying tendency to stop dispensing mid-stream like a man with a colon problem.

The definitely of crazy is doing the same thing and expecting different results. So once this K-Slim - embarrassingly, my third - dies completely, I am going to buy a model with controls that isn’t on the lid. The venerable original K-Classic should suffice nicely. The unit my parents have is going strong on eight years now.

Fuck off, DST

This is the annual springtime about jumping over to daylight saving time. I woke up this morning feeling like crap because I forgotten that we’d lose an hour overnight. Well guess what? I worked out heavily yesterday, so that one less hour of sleep was absolutely detrimental. Why didn’t you sleep in? Because Sunday is for getting things done. Saturday is the real shabbat.

And then I spent the rest of DST Sunday in an out-of-sync fog. There was no appetite during breakfast, and the afternoon seemingly dragged on forever, even though we technically lost an hour. But there’s the reward at the end, right? The entire reason for this crazy charade: the extra sun light afforded during the evening hours.

Admittedly it is quite nice to enjoy an after-dinner coffee (decaf, of course) whilst looking outside the window to a deep afternoon sun. Then the golden hour to follow. Again, it’s not the daylight savings time that we hate, it’s the switching back and forth. If President Trump can make this happen, he deserves a third term just for it. I’m only half joking.

Good news for me is I don’t have a car commute tomorrow morning. Best of luck to those of you who do. Quote: ”The switch to daylight saving time in the spring results in an increase in motor-vehicle occupant fatal crashes…”

Give them what they want

The university I work at is facing a prolonged budget crisis. A revenue source that the campus can draw from is selling what is called “pouring rights”. As the name poorly suggests, it’s about non-alcholic beverages. The university signs a contract with a drinks company, be it Pepsi, Coco Cola, Red Bull, whoever, and that company have exclusive rights. If Pepsi inks a deal and you prefer Coke, well that’s too bad.

At the recent budget meeting the pouring rights topic came up, and certain folks voiced concerns about the healthiness of the beverages sold. Incredible: we are facing a mathematical shortfall, and people can still find ways to virtue signal. As if offering healthier drinks will somehow make the university more money.

Despise capitalism all you want, but that’s the framework we operate in. Should California spend more on public educaiton? Sure, but until that happens, universities will do accounting just like any other private corporation. It’s not personal, it’s just business. You cannot spend more money than you take in.

I couldn’t care less if the university signs a contract with Coco Cola, and all the vending drinks are the tasty sugary stuff. If that is what generates the most revenue, then that is the way. The lone goal here is to make money.

And let’s not infantilize full-fledged adults. If you’re old enough to sign up for the military, then you’re old enough to make your own choices about what to drink and what to eat. College students don’t need to be coddled and restricted. If junk food is what sells, then by god we should sell all the junk food and take in that much-needed cash.

Besides… GLP1 agonist medications are thing now!

Alone in my thoughts

Last week for two days the Internet at home was out of service. We suspect it’s due to all the digging that PG&E has been doing in the neighborhood. So who is responsible for the bill credit? The beleaguered energy company, or Comcast?

Nevertheless, the total lack of Internet access provided an excellent opportunity to do some digital detoxing. I couldn’t even rely on cellular service from my phone. Verizon is a dead-zone in my first floor dungeon of a studio.

As a reader of many books, it would be too easy to grab the next one on the shelf. I wanted to challenge myself: can I truly do nothing for the few hours before bed? Heck, can I even eat a meal without looking at anything that’s on the Internet?

I’m not some luddite that think we should abstain from the glorious dopamine drips that a modern Internet connection provides. I greatly enjoy spending countless hours on Youtube, and that’s never going to stop. A cabin on Walden pound without Internet is not some badge of honor. The online world is a wondrous place to be enjoyed.

Though I think it’s an important exercise to be able to sit still and do nothing for an extended period. I’m not saying you have to "raw-dog” a plane ride. But if you can’t do it at all - your fingers itches for the smartphone in less than a minute of nothing doing, then there might be some negatively addictive tendencies to look into.

Given the option I would take having an active home Internet over deadness every single time. But when the network does go down, it’s good to know that I remain capable of not going stir crazy.