This week in squirrels…

Summary

  • The state of the US
    • With ICE the SS raiding houses with no warrants and shooting multiple people in the streets, threats of more raiding of countries, and the CIA in full force all over social media, it’s more important than ever to speak up, speak out, have hard conversations, and support the people who need it.
  • Cult of the Lamb
    • A friend gifted me this game, and even with only the base game, no DLC, I am COMPLETELY hooked and just want to play this game.
    • I have lost hours playing it with oomfies, and it’s really good to have something to decompress.
  • Missing Overcast
    • Trying to listen to podcasts on my music player is difficult. I am completely spoiled by the “Voice Booster” effect chain Overcast applies. So many quality content podcasts have poor sound quality.
    • I am drowning in bassy plosives and muddy voices and dynamics all over the place.
    • I tried to download and install a 3rd party eq/effects chain but of course my mp3 player doesn’t support it.
  • Stomach woes
    • My overall health is improving a little, but then I caught some stomach bug that had me appreciating how nice and plush my bathroom rugs are. It’s been touch-and-go for almost a week
  • Feeling stable with NixOS
    • I am still having some issues with nixpkgs, but my actual NixOS setup is feeling stable enough that I don’t feel the need to constantly be installing or changing things.
    • I spent a little time unifying my waybar/fuzzel/mako style setup since I left DSM, but it wasn’t much to get everything looking consistent and nice.
    • I think my next step is finding a way to make the underlying configurations and changes more visible for my own sanity.
  • The Joys of an music player
    • I have ended up toying with this a bit to try and make podcasts sound nicer, like on my phone, but otherwise… I plug in headphones, and it plays my music. I am really happy with it.
    • It still has me very disconnected from my phone solely as a bonus effect.
    • I did end up buying some new casual headphones. There is currently a sizable market for inexpensive 90 ’s-style over-ear and earbuds that deliver very high-quality sound at sub-50 and sub-20 price points.
    • Both Kaoss and Moondrop have nice classic headphones, so I got a pairwith upgraded foam, and it’s a delight.

Books

  • Alter Ego Volume 1 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
    • I hated the MC and LOVED the story here and how they told it. What was worse was that, in a way, I hated the MC because I was invested in seeing her not be such a mess.
  • Alter Ego 2 Noel & June ⭐⭐⭐⭐
    • I kinda feel like four stars is a smidgen generous for this. This feels so much like a victory lap after the first one, keeping the self-referential style. Even though it tries, I can’t say it adds a lot to the story, but it lets you see even more of the things you want.
  • A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow, Vol. 1 - 9 ⭐⭐⭐
    • I wanted so much more from this, but I also don’t feel it was necessarily bad. I do believe it should have been three volumes shorter. There were just too many issues of the same thing over and over.

Music

  • Lauren Sanderson - SPELL IT OUT (Official Music Video) - YouTube
    • I am so excited for a new album from her. Of course, she starts with being horny af. very on brand.
  • Carbon Based Lifeforms’ “Derelicts”, “Seeker”, & “Hydroponic Garden”
    • I have been wanting something to help me relax, and CBL’s discography has LOTS of amazing ambient music that isn’t too eerie, a bit of a beat, and vocals really help
  • Poppy’s “Empty Hands”
    • This brand new album from Poppy! This really feels like an extension of “Negative Spaces.” The whole thing was co-written and produced by Jordan Fish of Bring Me the Horizon, and you can really hear it. This is more of Poppy’s move into more metal, alt-metal, and all that. I don’t love it, honestly. I preferred more of the pop-metal of “I Disagree (more)” and the industrial-metal style of “Choke” and “Zig.” I appreciated the Evanescence and Kitty influences, but this is a 6 for me. Fans of Bring Me the Horizon will probably like it a lot more, though.

Reads and Videos

  • Disney did an Anti-Semitism again - YouTube
    • I have been head nodding on FD more and more and more. I deeply relate to his commentary on being critical about media literacy, especially about how being critical of something is directly proportional to how much he likes it.
    • I also nod along to how some people equate liking something from an entertainment standard needing to be equivalent to liking something from a moral standard. He says “equating artistic quality with moral quality” and “how liking that thing means something about them.”
    • Generally, how much I dig into critiques on something is directly proportional to how much I like it.
    • See also, me and my rants about the anime “100 girlfriends that really, really, really, really love you.” This show is irredeemably bad, but I also love this dumb show, 8/10
  • Party of One for Code Review! - by Kent Beck
    • Another even more insightful article about what it’s like to be a professional developer and software engineer in this age of emerging AI, as well as already well-known problems with code reviews. I really like this, especially this line “I miss the back-and-forth with another human who cares about the code. I miss being surprised by someone else’s solution. I miss the social pressure to explain my thinking out loud, which always makes the thinking better.”
  • Milk Is Not $20
    • There is a website that lives rent-free in my head. It lets you visualize the difference between the average household income of $1 million and $1 billion.
    • The economy of scale is mind-boggling, even when you actively subtract that only a fraction of that billion dollars is liquid assets.
  • Microsoft gave FBI a set of BitLocker encryption keys to unlock suspects’ laptops: Reports | TechCrunch
    • Ah, yes, the next entry in my series known as…
    • sigh
  • How dare I feel joy when the world is burning
    • If you feel guilty about this, this is a decent read. I really fight with this a lot, and how little I show up.
  • Bring Back Ops Pride - by Charity Majors - charity.wtf
    • More amazing writing from Charity. It seems this will be more of a thing in the near future.

Quote of the Week

If people had any ability to enter self-reflection without prompting, a therapist would be a pretty rare job.

  • @onlyhavecans