Sam's L33t Journal

Too much going on, here and around. So multipost time:

The Biden docs - So it turns out that Biden and everyone left classified docs everywhere in the course of their work? It definitely seems that several things are broken with how this sort of stuff is managed, but it's super-aggravating that's going to be the basis for equivocation between Biden (and Pence, and whoever) misplacing a few confidential things in the course of their work and Trump (who AFAICT did not work) just walking out the doors with boxes and boxes of the stuff because he thinks he's still President, and then trying like seventeen contradictory coverups when people noticed he was just waving the docs around to whoever. At the very least.

Been meaning to say something on the topic for ages and failing. Why does the situation have to be so dumb?!

The SOTU - Seems it went well for the Democrats, when it garners feedback like this and this. Even Trump had some positive words. (What happened, he watch the speech alone? Get Trump into a one-on-one with Biden and Trump will wind up liking the guy. Temporarily, anyways. He's malleable.)

Google's AI push - Gonna be "fun" with the "Google goes all-in on something" push, hope it goes better than last time. So far this hard steering (maximum chaos layoffs, product launches timed by external factors) does not seem to have helped the company in investors' eyes. The most amusing framework (though not exactly totally accurate, it over-implies the market does things for reasons) is that the James Webb Space Telescope managed to cost Google more than NASA.

On more prosaic work notes, the new desk space is working out pretty well. Same building, higher floor, but just across a connector from one of the new building's new cafeterias.

Weathering the weather whatever the weather - For February, this weather is wild, and that first letter is upside-down. Might make it through the whole winter without a significant snow-day, we'll see.

Tunic - I started playing a new game, an old-school Zelda meets Dark Souls number and it is glorious. It's fun and beautiful and charming. The aforementioned mashup of elements aside, a key feature of this game is that it captures one of the interesting aspects of exploration in old-school gaming by putting much of the interface in mysterious runes, not really explaining how things work in the game's normal flow, and giving you a beautiful but partially-complete manual, written in an unknown language with a few familiar words, with penciled-in margin notes. Some real nostalgia there, I suppose (it's potent anemoia in my case), for those who had some experience playing import-only games from a nation with a long tradition of video gaming innovation and also throwing in a few English words for spice.

The further twist is that the pages of this manual are a collectible item in the game. Don't ask too much about how that works diagetically, I don't know that there's a coherent explanation for that at all, but it's really effective in making knowledge about how the game works (whether figured out through collection and interpretation or unguided exploration) a well-won prize, while still handing out key bits of knowledge that end up being as much "the thing that unlocks the next area" as the in-game items.

Magic - New set's out, as the ancient evil that wants to compleately perfect Magic's multiverse by turning everyone into Geiger-esque cyborg monstrosities has broken the shell of the world (of Mirroden) and launched their omninvasion, with the heroes' plan to stop that definitely not going as planned. The set's pretty fun so far, at least there's some new stuff to shake up Standard. I played two rounds of sealed today, cratered 1-3 in the first but went 7-1 in the second (limited matches in Magic: Arena go to the first of seven wins or three losses). That second match had it all: Managing to overcome an opponent who played two copies of The Eternal Wanderer (wish my sealed pools were like that, that's for sure), braining an opponent with that third ability on The Filigree Sylex, and combining Paladin of Predation and Sylvok Battle-Chair to defeat my last opponent two ways simultaneously.

Another big event for this week: The second branch of the Green Line Extension project opened last Monday. Feels a bit unreal.

It really is a big deal, though. It's the most significant expansion of MBTA service since the extension of the Red Line to Alewife in 1985. It's been in the works since 2006 (formal start of planning for the project) and a dream for a century in the minds of Boston transit planners.

And it's particularly significant for my own town of Somerville, it brings a huge percent of Somerville within walking distance of light rail and makes Somerville perhaps even better transit-connected than Cambridge. At the very least, we now have seven T stops (Davis, Assembly, Union, East Somerville, Gilman, Magoun, Ball) to Cambridge's six (Kendall, Central, Harvard, Porter, Alewife, Lechmere).

So much is possible, let's not take quite so many decades next time!

It's been a while again. Things have been busy.

Much of last weekend was taken up by Honk!, we went to that in Davis Square on Saturday and Harvard Square on Sunday. Saw Sarah and Steven and baby Sam there, the "fancy tea in the park" group met up in the park at Davis on Saturday, and Sarah was walking Sam around the festival in her coloring-book dress (a whimsical bit of participatory fashion art that always makes me smile) on Sunday. Little Sam's walking around now, too. Definitely a lot of vicarious fun to see babies in that stage. So much to do!

We also happened across an early performance in Union Square Plaza Thursday night.

Sunday morning, I did some cooking: Mixed greens with feta, homemade salsa with heirloom tomatoes and a mix of roasted and pickled hot peppers, chili in the instant pot.

Later on Sunday, I dropped by the Vans store with Erica for some new shoes. Her current shoes still fit, so I thought I should try up a half size, but turns out that current pair had really stretched out and she was a full size up.

On Monday, we went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for a bit.

Today I had a dentist appointment mid-day for a cleaning. And had a solo-parenting evening, Julie was out late for some work event. All went smoothly.

A little further back: Last weekend Erica went to a friend's birthday party. The party venue ("Jump On In", with bouncy slides and whatnot) ran things very efficiently, the kids had a blast. And we did other weekend-y things? I assume. It seems so long ago.

Work is busy, lots of C++ template wrangling, and a mix of writing doc and trying to clean up the design I'm documenting.

There's a Magic: the Gathering sealed tournament for the latest set at the office for the first time in few years. Fun to play with some of my colleagues again.

Time keeps on slipping.

Last weekend, we took Erica to two friends' birthday parties on Saturday. The weather was super hot. On Sunday, we went to George's Island and took a tour of the fort there.

The last week of camp was busy. We went to Erica's camp show on Friday, which parents were invited to attend in person for the last week.

This week is the start of my trip home to Cleveland with Erica to visit my parents and brother. She's done solo travel with Julie, and I've done weeks alone at home with her, but this is my first time traveling with just Erica. Flew out yesterday, and the trip went fine, despite all of this weekend's chaos on the T. I somehow managed to forget Erica's car seat, but my dad was able to buy a booster seat at a Walmart near the airport.

Today, we went to RTA's "Touch a Truck" kids event in Cleveland's Public Square, then went to the Maltz Museum for the Marc Chagall children's art exhibit and a crafting event run by Upcycle Parts Shop. Then we had burgers at home for dinner, and potato salad with herbs from the garden.

Another post that's many posts because I don't get around to things. Let's see...

Father's Day was last weekend, and Erica planned quite an exciting day for us (including drawing out a map of the day's adventures). We went to a yakitori restaurant at Assembly for lunch, headed down to the Boston location of Taiyaki NYC for ice cream, and then went to the Children's Museum for some family time (where Erica and Julie enjoyed making origami by the Japanese House, Julie's really good at it).

Erica went to climbing camp at Boston Bouldering Project this week and really enjoyed it.

Today, Julie and Erica left early in the morning to visit Julie's family, giving me a few days of blissful alone time. (I'll be taking kid in turn and visiting my parents at the end of the summer.) I went to the aquarium by myself today (very relaxing), played a bit of Ingress, had some nice food.

Transit in Boston is currently completely screwed by a construction site disaster at the Haymarket Garage demolition partially closing several T routes and service cuts by the short-staffed MBTA in the aftermath of several accidents. At least the weekend closures of one of the airport tunnels has been delayed. First train from Union no-showed at the scheduled time this morning, causing Julie some stress. At least they made it to the airport.

Watching the January 6th hearings has been really interesting. Thought a lot of it would be old news, but there are still new things coming out of the investigation. For example, it was news to me that Trump was far enough in a plan to replace the head of the DOJ with someone who would go along with his "just declare the election corrupt" plan (to the point of prematurely referring to Clark at the "Acting Attorney General" in WH logs) and that he was dissuaded by the prospect of mass resignations. Also notable that several members of Congress explicitly asked for Presidential pardons. (Gaetz in particular was especially eager to get a blanket pardon for absolutely everything for all time.) That last impeachment may have actually done some good in preventing a post-coup pardon spree. Certainly would have been a bad look.

The rest of politics was mostly a cavalcade of the most extreme conservative activism in Supreme Court rulings: Limiting people's recourse if they are not informed of their Miranda rights, declaring gun restrictions like those in NY and MA unconstitutional (and basically all gun restrictions presumptively unconstitutional, possibly including the very minimal bipartisan bill just passed by the Senate), requiring that state money go to religious schools if charter schools are allowed (with that if next up on the chopping block), and of course, overturning Roe v. Wade.

Coercing someone into carrying a pregnancy to term for any reason is tyrannical. The restrictions enabled by the Dobbs ruling will lead to egregious violations of privacy and liberty. They will also require people to wait to no benefit until impending medical emergencies become actual ones. (Or even until actual medical emergencies reach a final, fatal resolution.) They will require people to take on risks that far exceed the baseline risk of pregnancy (e.g. being forced to put off treatment for cancer or other serious disease). They will prevent women from accessing necessary medical care after miscarriages, and require them to carry to term pregnancies that are not viable. They will restrict access to birth control and fertility treatments.

It's a disaster, and Thomas's concurrence with the ruling makes it clear that they're coming after Obergefell and Lawrence and even Griswold next. He makes it clear that he wants to get rid of the idea of substantive due process entirely. The originalist view leads to a very anemic version of constitutional protections, protecting just the liberty people from centuries past enumerated, as enjoyed by just the people they considered worthy of consideration. Except it's not even that. Judges are generally not historians, and we're ruled not just by originalism but shitty originalism. (e.g. it's not just interpreting the law as if it were still 1791 or 1868 or whatever (which it's not), but specifically a cherry-picked version of that which flatters the biases of J Thomas et al.)

First hot weekend of the year, and a busy one.

Yesterday was the first day for the Union Square Farmers Market. I've been looking forward to that so much. It was back to the parking lot at the Union Square Plaza, the 2020 layout. Some of the less-effective communicable disease mitigation have been ditched, and face-masks are required only for the first hour. There's still hand sanitizer at the entrance, which seems like a good idea in general.

(It's not that surprising that the location changed back. 2021's plan of "close part of Somerville Avenue in the middle of every Saturday" was quite surprising to be able to pull off for even one year. Maybe next year it will be spread out over the plaza again in the 2019 configuration.)

Later, we had lunch at Bronwyn with a school acquaintance of Julie's who'd just recently moved to town. Somerville Porchfest, the city-wide music festival, was in the afternoon, and Erica's school friend's family was hosting their dad's band and having a potluck dinner after. Porchfest turns the whole city into a sprawling party that rolls across town, and people were out in Union and Prospect listening to music, enjoying the weather, picnicking, selling lemonade, and flagrantly violating those stringent open-container rules. (Legalize having a beer in the park!) The potluck had enough food to feed several armies (I brought rolls from the farmers market), and Eris had fun playing with several of her school friends.

Today, I made beer-can chicken, something I'd been thinking about doing again this winter but failed to get around to. I cooked a whole chicken from Stillman that I picked up at the farmers market. And Eris had a birthday party to attend, at Prospect Hill Playground.

Last week was record-setting-by-far in terms of how many COVID cases were caught in testing at kid's school. It seems that we've wandered from "the CDC isn't recommending masking anymore" to "okay, so they are recommending masking again, but the time for expecting anyone to do anything in particular is over". People have baked in the assumption that the second Omicron wave can't be worse, but the numbers only look a hair different from five or six weeks short of the previous peak.

In addition to case counts, I really wish I had more data on repeat cases: Percentage of all cases, distribution of time since last case, correlation with severity of last case. Would help us know what we're in for.

Last weekend I took Eris to the aquarium. Might do science museum when the Green Line Extension opening next week puts that two T stops away from our door.

I made a Saint Patrick's Day dinner of corned beef and veggies in the Instant Pot, which was fun and surprisingly easy. Baked some soda bread, too.

I keep meaning to write something about kid's idiosyncratic way of pronouncing some things. Not sure where she gets all of her Erisisms: "Intertresting", "rememories", "geanz". I'm forgetting a few funny ones, I think.

Today, the weather was beautiful and we got food from Littleburg and ate in the park. And then got ice cream from Gracie's afterwards.

Mask requirements have lifted at kid's school this week, though some of the parents (including us) are playing it cautious. There are still cases of COVID in the school. Fewer this week than last, so at least that's not immediately taking off. But another in kid's class.

I like the Caltech approach over MIT's.

I've been watching more movies with the kid lately. Digging into the Ghibli catalog: My Neighbor Totoro, Ponyo, Kiki's Delivery Service, The Secret World of Arrietty. And also Cartoon Saloon's Song of the Sea.

Yesterday it snowed a whole lot. Waded to the park with Eris yesterday, then spent some time today digging out our door/garage. Our condo pays for snow removal, but like last time our snow removal service (functional last year) had big problems.

The COVID wave here seems to be waning.

It really frustrates me to see the lack of unity on pandemic mitigation. Like I read Angie Schmitt's stuff on Twitter, she's a person who writes a lot about pedestrian safety, really gets how bad health outcomes that are caused by doing things "the normal way" just get swept under the rug. But she's become a person whose number-one priority is having hard precomitments about when we can just stop trying re pandemic mitigation. Like I get it, I'm very glad schools are open here. "Schools closed, bars open" is insane, children shouldn't (and can't) do pandemic mitigation alone, it's terribly unfair just to cease the inexpensive public gatherings. But I'm glad that the kids are expected to try to help with pandemic mitigation here along with everyone, it seems like the right thing to do given that the pandemic is still ongoing and the long-term effects of COVID, even on kids specifically, are still unknown. It seems insane to me the degree to which people play up the mental-health impact of things as relatively innocuous as masking, while downplaying the mental-health impact of the pandemic itself. And the fact is, children's mental health wasn't all sunshine and roses pre-pandemic. Just insisting everything is normal now isn't a quick fix.

One drink that I wish I could order somewhere is the hot ale flip (aka colonial flip), a concoction of ale, rum, eggs, molasses, and sugar, stirred with a red-hot fireplace poker. Of course, warm (and maybe flat) beer is not the most popular base for a drink, and that method of warming is probably not the most practical for modern times. But you'd think this would be a thing you'd be able to find in Boston in the fall, of all places and times. This fall in particular, when the enthusiasm for outdoor dining in relatively chilly weather is at an unusual high. (Though the height of that was probably last spring or the previous fall.)

Anyways, that was one thing that was wandering through my mind while I took a walk this evening.

I stopped by Wild Child in Bow Market, a dimly-lit bookstore and wine bar. Interesting place, though much of the lighting is provided by some candelabras amidst the stacks on the main table, and with my pyrophobia I find the idea of lighting a bookstore with uncovered candles vaguely terrifying.

A few of the more shoulder-to-shoulder bars in the neighborhood are requiring proof of vaccination. But a lot of places are pretty packed. Hold a seat for me, for sometime.

It's snowing. Really coming down, too, though I don't know if it will stick.

I'm continuously exhausted. Eris is a bit of a nightmare in the evenings. Mornings aren't great, either. She really wants a lot of hand-holding for everything, and is utterly uncompromising. Being tired makes her all the more inflexible, which doesn't help her get to bed.

As you can see, I still don't find time to write.

Julie got a COVID vaccine two weeks ago (first dose Pfizer), from one of the state vaccination sites in town. I got one last week (same), though I had to grab a Zipcar and haul out to Marshfield. Not too bad. But I'm out of practice and really don't enjoy Boston driving. I've been getting in a lot more practice than usual, driving Juile and Eris to appointments. Hoping at some point some of that won't be necessary. But without pediatric vaccines, it's eyes on the skies for the foreseeable future. ("COVID isn't a problem for kids lol" is not the reaction of the crowd that knows way too much about immunology.) Maybe we'll get to the point where it's "pandemic over" for everyone but parents. Still, though we're not going back to Sandy this summer (and somewhat more surprisingly, my parents aren't either), we are trying to make some plans for a more low-key family vacation once all the adults are vaccinated. It's something.

What else? I watched season four of Infinity Train, which just came out on HBO Max. The fourth and apparently last season. It's a great, creative show, really deserves to get the full eight "books" the creators had planned. On the other hand, each season is a coherent, complete story, so the early end doesn't mar what's already created. The networks just don't seem to know what to do with YA animated shows (or bizarre original sci-fi, for that matter). And does it even fit into the all-streaming business model? I literally resubscribed to HBO Max for season three. But while season four certainly had me sticking around, maybe other stuff would have as well (and maybe other stuff will, now that the show's cancelled).