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I've been feeling off lately. I am not sure how long I've been feeling it and it might have a lot to do with the passing of my father. It took a while to find the right words to describe what I feel and I think I can succinctly describe it as follows:

I have the desire, and lack the motivation.

I have a list of things I want to do, yet I really struggle with the actual doing of things. I attribute this to laziness, though my partner is inclined to not belive this at all and instead tells me that she doesn't see lazy when she looks at me or what I do.

My strength is perseverance, it's also my weakness. I persevere through a lot. I have the thought that I do a lot, and that's not enough. I was talkign to friends this past weekend and the feeling is mutual amongst us. On Friday I came across a post on Reddit that resonates with me. It does a better job of describing how I feel about myself than I seemingly can.

In an effort to help myself with this, I've stopped multi-tasking most things. I'm no longer listening to podcasts while I work. I don't have the idiot box on in the background while I work on my hobbies. I don't have any media playing in the background while I do dishes, or shower. I'm cutting off the sources of noise that may be contributing to my overload. I'm not sure this will work or is sustainable. After all, I am arguably less productive with not consuming media while I do tasks. I have the thought that ultimately this will be in my favour, as I'll be inclined to give up some podcasts that no longer help me. It's a task I've been long delaying.

I will report back here and see how it's been going in a month.

Read this post from the NY Times. When I did it wasn't paywalled. It's epic. Though I can't comment much on it now, as it's now paywalled for me, though I suspect that is due to my already having read it. Hopefully you will fare better.

X added a new feature that seems to be a good thing. The feature shows physically where the account is based out of. This means that foreign actors who seek to influence in regions or countries are being exposed as not actually being from that region. This however is not perfect, as VPNs exist and IP addresses are more tied to ISP locations than account holder locations. My IP address lists me in a region that is several hours away from my actual location.

Blogs might be (a variant) of the original social media. Perhaps it's better classified as a journal. Back in the early days personal sites were the norm. Sites like GeoCities and AngelFire were aggregating personal blogs and then places like Live Journal and My Space came along before Facebook gobbled everything up. Personal blogs fell by the wayside because facebook made it easy enough to share content with your family and friends. Then facebook enshittified (if it wasn't enshittified from the start). Anyway, blogs are coming back and disassociated wonders could niche blogs come back next?

Is this a niche blog? I'm not sure. This is more of a link-dump that I want to comment on. I'm not a writer, I have thoughts and I want to share them. Also I was inspired to do something with my domain. This is the result. I did wonder while reading this article though, I seem to be keenly aware of what's going on and able to be current.

Thinking about starting a blog? I can help.

I love music. Music and I are really good friends. I can play every instrument (meaning I can produce a sound from every instrument I've touched…perhaps not a nice sound, yet a sound nonetheless). I know a fair amount about bands, songs, albums, genres and album artwork. I've gone to quite a few concerts, though I have been restriciting it to three acts per year. Mostly because ticket prices are fuckin bonkers. Cue the UK working to pass this ban. I think it's great that someone, somewhere (lately, it seems to the the UK that's spearheading these initiatives) is lookin out for the consumers.

I'm not 100% on the facts here, though I believe that ticket seller conglomerates (like Ticketmaster) kind of encourage scalping and even engage on their own brand of fuckery in enshittification that raises the ticket price based on demand. I've experienced this with tickets for a Nine Inch Nails show this past summer where the prices jumped quite a bit between viewing a seating plan and clicking add to cart. I'm not even considering the "convenience fees". I'm not aware of any place to buy tickets in person for major shows. Whose convenience is this paying for?

On the other hand, the servers and infrastructure to make purchaing tickets online require a fairly significant investment, as the demand is great. Anyone who's bought tickets in the last few years can attest to this, as the queues are long and refreshing the browser window because the page failed to load is a regular inconvenience we face. I wonder, would ticket prices be lower as people would have to purchase them in person? Is it still possible for the venues to reserve a number of tickets to sell at the booth/doors when the tickets go on sale on the website? I have the thought that ticket prices might be more reasonable if we forgo online purchasing altogether. The scarcity of time to purchase tickets in person would naturally decrease as the venues want to fill the seats. Scalpers could still exist under this framework.

Another thought occurred to me, perhaps online was meant to thwart scalpers? Sometime in the late 2000's I went to see NIN and my then wife bought me tickets using her credit card instead of mine and I was almost denied entry because I could not produce ID saying I was who the ticket said had pruchased it. Maybe that's the way forward.

I had the opportunity to play at Extra-Life this year. The event took place this past weekend and lasts 24 hours. My local board gaming group does this every year and this is my second year participating. We raised nearly $1,558 for CHEO. I could not be happier with our effort this year. A personal recap follows. I played the following games on Saturday:

• Nexus-Ops with Jon and Dan/Ryan.
• Shadow of the Sun with Jon, and Cameron.
• Aura of Dracula with Ryan, Jon, Cameron, and Luc.
• Samurai with Cameron and Jon.
• Rebel Princess with Jon, Cameron, Elliot, and Dan.
• Lord of the Rings: Fellowship pf the Rings: Trick Taking Game with Jesse, Jon, and Cameron.
• Gadget Builder with Dan, Jon, and Cameron.

On Sunday I got less games in, as there was elss time to play:

• Gadget Builder with Ryan, Jon, and Dan.
• Seers Catalog with Ryan, Jon, and Dan.
• Project: Elite with Christian, Casey and Chase.
• Adrenaline with Jon, Casey and Chase.
• For sale with Jon, Ryan and Rachel.
• No Thanks with Jon, Ryan and Rachel.

I played some new games and an old favourite.

Some additional observations:

• Aura of Dracula is a long game. It took us about 5 hours to complete the scenario.
• I did find that if you want to keep playing, you tend to play with the same people all the time.
• Shorter games are better for playing a lot of games in the same time-frame.

Goals for next year:

• I would like to vary who I get to play with more next year.
• I want to up the ante and raise more funds for next year.
• I want to play games I have not played in a long time (over a year).
• I want to bring in more of my own games that don't get a lot of play.

I was really excited for this article via Slashdot about the UK planning to cut animal testing by leveraging AI.

On the first read this seems an excellent way to utilize AI to save the lives of animals. Then you consider the current electricty and water needs that AI consumes to generate results for ChatGPT. Then you consider that AI tends to hallucinate. Also factor in that AI is only as good as it's source data. Oh! It's also reported to be black box that it's innerworkings are unknown. That last one is a stretch. Someone has to know how it works, it was programmed after all.

So save the lives of some animals at the expese of the planet. The animals get to live a little longer. This does not count the lives or quality of life for the humans that will undoubtedly "benefit" from the AI testing. With the current AI tech being prone to error, I would hesitate to use any products tha were AI tested, kind of like I tend to shy way from animal tested products. The plan does not include complete reliance on AI though, as it aims to reduce testing on dogs and non-human primates.

I have the thought that this plan is kinda like a real life trolly problem. Save the animals or save the planet... I'm not smart enough to figure out how to save both.

I saw an article earlier this week published by Penn State and brought my way via RSS and Hacker news.

The story details a trial of using light poles to host electric chargers. This is being framed as a win-win for both the municipality as well as the EV driver whom may not have access to a secure or dedicated garage like apartment dwellers or visitors to charge and shop while they wait in retail areas. Stay tuned for my thoughts on that. I'm going to write out my thoughts about the housing crisis at a later date. I largely agree with their argument. This would be a boon for everyone involved. As someone who doe not yet drive an EV, I am eagerly watching the space, especially the conversion space as I would love to repalce the combustion engine in my Element with an electric drive train. I know it's possible as Jerry and Zac did it with their jeep. Conversions are possible. They aren't cheap.

Anyway. Where I live we get snow a chunk of the year. Electric chargers on poles in our downtown would need to be mounted high enough to not get buried in the snow banks in the winter. I also wonder how the charge cables would be secured against bored people who have poor impulse control (like myself) from messing with them. Look no further than the air hose at every gas station. As far as I can tell, air hoses are less delicate than electric charge cables.

Here are some links I came across today that I found interesting in my RSS Feeds:

• Time to start de-Appling. Beth and I are going through how to best de-couple ourselves from the mega-corps. This article affects me more than it does her, though it matters more to people whom live in the E.U.
• The Joy and Pain of Learning New Things as an Older Human. Kotke posted this on his blog in June. It;s been sitting in my tabs waiting to be shared, here you go.
• Why Doctors Hate Their Computers. Another (even older) article that I came across recently. I like it becuase it aligns with my views about technology getting in the way of getting things done. This one is from the New Yorker and may be paywalled. I don't have a subscription.
• You Need to Be Bored. Here’s Why. Kotke strikes again. I haven't watched this video yet though I aim to. As soon as I put down the phone.
• Just a Little Longer. Another summer discovery. This is a post about the Chapter. I found it interesting to read and wanted to share with anyone who's reading along with me.
• Greatest irony of the AI age: Humans being increasingly hired to clean AI slop I am amused by this story and I recall seeing Cory Doctorow a few weeks ago talkign about the AI bubble. I'd like it to come sooner rather than later.
• I Am An AI Hater. I agree with Moser here. I highly recommend that everyone read this story.

Most of these links come from Hacker News and other blogs that I follow (like Kotke).

This coming weekend I am going to be participating in 24 hours of (board) gaming on November 15th and 16th. I reached out to friends and family to sponsor me to raise funds for CHEO. My goal is to do 24 hours of straight gaming, and I'm not sure how far I'm going to get. We'll see.

The games I played will be added to this post. As a pre-game, well game, tonight I played Nexus-Ops with friends. I placed 3rd (out of 3) with 8 points. As usual with me, I play games to play, and not to win. If you wanted to donate, you can follow this link.