justing.net

Week Notes No. 38

By Justin G. on 25JAN13MON

Mostly a week spent in the American Riviera, Santa Barbara, California.

Almanac / outlook

Lows of 44 and highs of 65 or 70 here in Santa Barbara. Clear skys.

Diurnals

Santa Barbara is an interesting place, one that I find difficult to explain. My best hypothesis is that all the evidence of wealth is due to it being imported from elsewhere, namely LA but possibly the rest of the country or world too. The climate, at least on this January week, was ideal.

We put together a list and map of places to visit.

JAN06MON

Spent the day at the marina and the beach nearby. Enjoyed Dart coffee. These oil platforms off the coast are surreal.

More stuff on the offshore oil fields: Ellwood / Platform Holly, Coal oil point seep, Carpenteria offshore oil field.

JAN07TUE

Downtown. Handlebar Coffee and Alessia pastries. The Presidio. Chaucer’s books. Via 42 Maestri for dinner.

The LA fires began this day, and throughout the week, other than attending to whether we were at risk in Santa Barbara I mostly ignored them and enjoyed my vacation. See also the YT weather forecast, and a follow up on Saturday.

JAN08WED

A day in, plus photowalk.

JAN09THU

Found Dune coffee, which was also very good. Devareux Beach in Goleta, CA. Rocket launch viewing at Lompoc.

JAN10FRI

Lunch on campus and drive back. The sunset ombre was gorgeous!

JAN11SAT

Running, chores, a loaf of bread. Less screen time.

The LA wildfires increasingly hit home. This is another surreal event. See also Stray Thought on contrasts below.

JAN12SUN

Bias toward action: clean up garage, work on fitness, read more instead of interneting.

Also, coming to you live from grocery shopping for some reporting on the bird flu egg shortage.

Media

Reading

Finished Ancillary Mercy and started Translation State both by Ann Leckie.

Bought a copy of Theft by Finding by David Sedaris. Maybe I will pair it with Kafka’s Diaries.

My new skill for reading this year is I plan to practice keeping some easy read around even when I am reading some harder material so that I don’t just default to a screen (ie doom scroll or other form of boredom waste) whenever I don’t feel like reading the harder stuff. I need a stack of those on the lower shelf of the coffee table.

YouTube

Any Austin on the boring places in GTA V. I love these places. And I’m looking forward to finding what they cook up for GTA VI whenever that comes out. But it won’t be any mountains, because Florida doesn’t have those. Hopefully there will be some island and “river” and swampy stuff though. Should be good. Or garbage. Hard to say.

LA weather before the fires.

Sarah Cooper with a Q1 update.

Music

Fever Ray.

Anjunadeep 15 and 14.

Some older Hot Chip on the drive. And the Hot Chip Tiny Desk Concert.

Royksopp Nebulous Nights (slyt) and Profound Mysteries I-III (slyt).

Rich Aucoin Octave the Cat and Moog.

Television

S1E9 of Dark.

Other

Appetites

• This pressure cooker chili looks appetizing (from Serious Eats)
• These sourdough waffles look amazing (from NYT).
• Caesar Salad (Serious Eats) is on the menu this week.

Facts or ideas

• Apparently you can surgically change the color of your eyes now. But it’s risky. Via Damn Interesting.
• More details on alcohol and cancer risk. See original fact from last March.

Links

• Slime molds are pretty cool.
• I suppose it is January, so everybody is all “I should get in better shape” and I guess I’m taking the opportunity to think on that too. The Economist published an article on lifting weights, which prompted me to go look for the WHO exercise recommendations here, and page 32 (42 in the pdf) recommends 150-300 minutes of moderate-intensity per week, or 75-150 minutes of vigorous-intensity. Additionally strength training at moderate or above intensity 2 days per week. I do not have a good reason to not prioritize doing this. And it will cut down on screen time. I hope.
• It’s a good idea to make space for boredom. Don’t just fall into whatever is available because what is always is available is your stupid phone. Do something else. At least read a book.
• I had eventually called Totino’s “stupid pizza” or “pizza food” back when I was occasionally eating them. I’ve even been nostalgic for that ultra-processed food item, and have bought one on occasion for the memory of it. This MeFi comment effectively reduces this particular stupid pizza to it’s elements. Only time will tell if this will have a wasting effect on my desire ever buy one again.

Quotes

pain is not just one thing. It’s a thousand different things, all called ‘pain.’

Dr. Gereau in Chronic Pain is a Hidden Epidemic. Related.

Stray thoughts

Truth default but world update resistant

Humans are truth default when the information is novel to them but also extremely skeptical or even blind to new information that is contrary to their held beliefs. Is this right? What is the split between these two defaults?

Those LLMs

I have been making a more concerted effort to explore the uses of the LLMs.¹ I have access to Gemini through work, and I have a personal subscription to Claude bc I appreciate their philosophy more. I’m leaving ChatGPT aside for now, but am open to revisiting that later. Honestly, I’ve had the most success by using it as a coach for photography and fitness. I’d like to find other strengths as well. My strong preference is to use it as a teacher or as a technician, but that may be limiting it. Based on my experiences so far, it feels like one solid use case is something like an advancement of spell + grammar checker: it can tell you where your writing is strong or weak, what changes you should consider making to improve, etc. Maybe it’s the interactive nature of the chat interface that requires you to write out your thoughts and then gives you quick feedback on if what you are saying is having the desired effect. That’s neat.

Contrasts

The cognitive dissonance of watching² all the worldly chaos, and yet my own life continues to be, thankfully, mundane. When I came home from my recent trip, this contrast really came home for me too. The ordinary-ness and uninterrupted continuity that I am fortunate to have…. I don’t know if it’s true, but I feel like humans are not well adapted for this firehose of human scale/relatable impacts across the globe. But nor should we ignore it and leave it all to the powers that be. What to do in this situation? How long can it last?

Interruptions

All. Of. The. Goddamn. Interruptions.

One cannot even open a website that you’ve paid for without an interruption. Or multiple interruptions. Begging for more of your attention. I’m here already, is that not enough? This is absurd. It’s maddening.

Stop. It.

I seriously think about just not using the internet except for specific precision strikes. In that way, it’s like going shopping. Get in. Get out. Do not loiter. Be not distracted. You can hardly find what you’re trying to buy through all the clutter of what you didn’t come to buy. The experience is not enjoyable. And the fact is that it could be better. Other sites, sites that are not so brand focused, those sites show it can be another way. They respect you and your time and attention by giving you what you came for.

Clutter / minimalism

I read something interesting yesterday, I’m not sure where, that it might be that those extremely tidy houses may not be quite what they seem. You know the ones - they’re not cluttered up with papers here and books there and just other things all over the place. It could be that those people are living an extremely disposable lifestyle. They buy the thing that they need, use it, and then throw it away. Or maybe donate it. Whatever it is, they don’t keep it around to mess up their aesthetic. I guess it costs some bucks to do that. But I’d rather not just be tossing things out all the time. I’ll keep ‘em, and keep the money too. So what if my house is a bit messy. I really live in it too.

To Reply: Email me your stray thoughts.