Blog

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

People watching

Shoutout to the early-risers. As I type these blog posts out on (weekday) mornings, I greatly enjoy the view out of the window of people who are up as early as I am (about 6:30 AM is when I begin typing). Some are on their way to a slogging commute, and others are simply walking their dogs. Whatever the reason, it’s a kindred spirit of people who wake up early, an empathetic bond.

I just wish some of them would get their heads out of their smartphones. Look around! Take in the morning air! Listen to the birds!

The quiet hours in the morning radiates a calm that I relish very much. The theatre of the color change as the sky turns from dark to light is rather magical. It’s best observed with a cup of coffee, or whichever morning beverage of your choice. The only trouble is getting up early, because it means going to sleep early as well. I’m lucky to have a choice; I have two hours to myself before I even have to think about leaving for work. Kudos to those who must get out of bed at an ungodly hour because of work. You folks are the true morning warriors.

Yesterday’s morning sky was slightly ominous as there was an orange tinge to the morning sun. Alas, the smoke from the wildfires burning to the east have finally made their way to our coastal enclave. In what has sadly become a yearly tradition, wildfire season brings horrible air quality to much of northern California. Good thing we’ve been accustomed to wearing masks, thanks to the COVID pandemic. I guess it’s time to mask back up whenever I’m outdoors again.

Somewhat coincidently, my Coway air purifiers alerted me to needing to change the odor filter. In the process I’m reminded of how important it is to have this purifier, because the HEPA filter - not due for a change for another six months - already looks kind of horrible. It’s definitely doing the job, and I’m counting on this thing to get me through fire season and beyond.

Auf Wiedersehen, Das

I am typing this out on a Keychron K8 wireless mechanical keyboard. The beloved Das Keyboard has been relegated to the closet, simply because it commits the cardinal sin of the modern digital word: having a cord. The wireless Keychron’s convenience of movement outweighs the higher typing quality of the renowned Das keyboard. Admittedly, it’s rather decent on Keychron, but the Das has that extra bit of solidity and sturdiness.

The Das is also significantly more expensive. As always, you definitely get what you pay for.

I would say any mechanical keyboard is better than the standard stuff. The increased response and feel to the fingers is what makes them such a sought after accessory for the computing enthusiasts crowd. The Keychron K8 isn’t the best at delivering those attributes, but it’s just about the only game in town if you want a wireless mechanical keyboard that’s catered to the Mac platform. It comes right out of the box with Mac-centric keys. The media keys on the ‘F’ row work correctly with the OS with zero tweaking.

Perhaps the best attribute about the K8 is that it’s quieter than the Das keyboard. It makes clicking and clacking through these blog posts in the morning a more pleasant experience for me and perhaps my sleeping housemates. Relatively speaking, of course: mechanical keyboards are innately loud. If quietness is your supreme, then mechanical keyboard is not for you.

Hopefully this Keychron K8 unit will last for a very long time, though as with all wireless electronics, the life of the battery will dictate everything. I bought the poverty-spec model without the hot-swapping capability and only white backlighting. It was on sale for about $65 dollars on Amazon. No affiliate money for me if you buy it through the link.

I should go to a game

Our local SF MUNI metro line - the M line - has returned to service. For over a year we’ve forgotten just how loud a passing train on the tracks can be. Alas, the windows in my studio in-law unit is not double-paned, so I get to hear the rumble every time a train goes by. Honestly though it’s not that intrusive; it’s the previously prolonged absence that have made it noticeable. At my old place I lived right next to a bus stop; I’m sure I’ll get used to this just the same.

It’ll be great to walk the one block to the metro stop and take the M train right to the baseball stadium at the downtown waterfront. For whatever reason, I’ve yet to attend a baseball game at Oracle Park this season, even though things have completely opened back up. The Giants also have the best record in the major leagues going on two months. Perhaps we’ve been stuck inside for so long, we don’t quiet yet know how to get back “out there” completely. I’d nearly forgotten there was actually baseball last year.

Gone are the halcyon days of attending half dozen of games a month.

The super virulent delta variant isn’t helping things, though I’m not particularly concerned about it. Everybody in my family who’s eligible have already gotten the vaccine (and looks like we’re going to need that third dose). Except for my grandmother, whose stubbornness and lack of mobility in her old age have thus far refused to make the trip downstairs at the old people home to get the shot. Even the threat of not seeing her grandkids is not enough of an incentive. None of us want to be the one to get her sick with COVID.

This isn’t some indoctrination of constantly watching Fox News (unless there’s a Chinese language equivalent I don’t know about). My grandmother just doesn't like needles, and want to avoid the potential initial side-effects of the vaccine. I’ll keep badgering my mother to badger her mother to get the shot, though. Ultimately it’s the safe thing to do.

This is going to be fun

I was at IKEA over the weekend and boy was it packed full of people. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a crowded showroom. There were many a young couple who most likely just purchased a house and are now looking to furnish it. Universities are also starting back up for the fall semester, so there were bunch of those sort of families buying stuff for their beloved undergrad.

And all I wanted to buy was a simple laundry basket! Good thing masks are enforced indoors in this part of the country.

It seems time is going in slow motion this year, because it’s difficult to realize the fall semester is upon us once again. It will be another school year of the unprecedented because our campus is going for a hybrid model. Not in the sense that classes will be physical and streamed online concurrently (we don’t have the money for that). Rather, a third of the classes will be on campus, and the rest will be online; either or. Of course, on the support side this poses a tremendous challenge for us. One that we’ve never done before, and hopefully, the last time we ever do it.

Also hopefully people will realize the pandemic is still very much going on, and to carry some grace for everyone else. It’s almost guaranteed that things will not go smoothly, with many hiccups along the way. I can’t speak for other departments, but for sure our department is trying the best we can. Like most places of employment, we are short-staffed, and going through the pandemic all the same ourselves.

As for me. I’m surprisingly excited for the upcoming semester. Nothing quite like extreme novelty to mix things up and create good learning opportunities. For an entity that’s as cyclical and unchanging as higher education, the past two years have been utterly chaotic (to say the least). Scarcely has there been a dull day at work. That’s a silver lining to COVID I can live with.

Optimize for longevity

My colleagues and I are going around the university campus, checking various computers to get them ready for the fall semester. Most of these machines have not been touched since the begin of the pandemic. At best, you’d just need to run some updates and be done with it. At worst, the PC won’t even boot into the operating system. Macs are definitely easier to deal with under this unprecedented situation.

It seems some users prefer ergonomic keyboards for their workstations. You know, the type with the split in the middle and a heavily contoured typing surface. Having never used one regularly, the ergonomic keyboards alway trip me up, difficulty with finding the keys I want. My muscle memory simply isn’t coded for this! I was raised on the “regular” keyboard.

A more wizen and experience colleague reminded my why people use the ergonomic keyboard: to (hopefully) prevent the inevitable decay that comes with using a computer every single day for many hours. Arthritis of the hands is not fun. Never mind the other stuff that can happen, too: pain at the neck, shoulders, all the way down to the lower back. If sitting in front of a computer is your thing, then you’ll want to optimize the position as best as possible.

Perhaps I should rethink having a laptop as my only device at home. An external monitor to raise the sight line, and an external keyboard to make typing more comfortable. I do enjoy the minimalist appearance of having only the laptop on the desk, and would hate to give up any more space for computer accessories. What I also need then is a bigger desk, ideally one that can adjust for height.

It’s definitely something to ponder on seriously. My hands and fingers are already not in so good a shape, as evident by my ongoing struggle with learning the piano in my 30s. Longevity is the game, so I really ought to optimize for that, instead of maintaining the status quo because of aesthetics.

There’s also another problem: the monitor I want is $5,000 dollars…

Car week is this week?

I guess Monterey Car Week is (still) happening this year? A bunch of rich guys running around with their vehicular toys might be slightly out of taste, given the current circumstances. If enthusiasts auction sites such as Bring a Trailer are any indication, there’s lots of money flowing around these days in the world of cars. Monterey Car Week provides the perfect platform for a bit of peacocking. “Looks at what I just purchased on BaT!” Or perhaps, “Please buy this ultra rare Porsche.”

For all the consternation thrown at the annual bike rally at Sturgis last week, I’m sure the same fervor will be shown to the crowd in Monterey. There’s no practical difference, right? A large group of people, from all over the country, descending on a region for a few days to hold large indoor and outdoor parties. This can’t possibly be good vis a vis the COVID delta variant. Yet I haven’t heard a negative peep about car week on twitter.

Please don’t tell me it’s because of the (perceived) demographics. A bunch of redneck bikers would surely be unvaccinated, threatening the precariousness of this pandemic. Meanwhile, sophisticated folks in formal wear walking around a pavilion of million-dollar cars would surely be the opposite. It shouldn’t matter, of course: it’s all the same passion for machines, be it two wheels or four. Then why only the bikers are getting bad press?

(Perceived) money sure have a way of distorting things, doesn’t it?

Admittedly, I’m sad I won’t be down in Monterey for the festivities. The historics down in Laguna Seca is my favorite event. Spending an entire day (or two) soaking in the smells of vintage petrol and metal is more my cup of tea than walking around a lawn with expensive cars that aren’t moving. There’s always next year, if the unvaccinated doesn’t continue to screw this pandemic up.

Not sure what this one is trying to say.

Dead batteries

As the university prepares for the return of in-person classes for the fall semester, some of the staff and faculty have started to trickle back on campus. But there’s a problem: their computers have been turned off since pre-pandemic, some 16 months earlier. No issues with the iMacs as they work fine once plugged back into power. The Dell PC towers, however, aren’t so convenient.

PC motherboards have a CMOS battery that provide just enough power for the board to remember its settings. If the battery were to run out of juice, say, during a pandemic when the PC is without power for more than a year, the motherboard is effectively reset. This becomes a problem when users boot it up for the first time in a long time, as the internal BIOS clock will be incorrect (and won’t boot further with an incorrect time), and also the hard-drive won’t be recognized.

Our department will then get the call and we would have to physical go to these users’ offices to replace the CMOS battery, and toggle everything back as it were. Tedious. Why can’t everybody use Mac computers to make all our lives easier?

Once we get the PC (and Macs too, honestly) back up and running, there’s another problem: the software is horrendously out of date. Performing updates to the apps and the operating system is at least another few hours. God forbid your PC is old enough to have a spinning hard-drive instead of solid-state; it’ll take the entire work-day for everything to sync back together and working correctly.

Solution? Well, let’s first agree to not have another pandemic. Then, opt for a laptop next time you’re given the option of a new work computer.