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Visited Meteor Crater

2026-05-20T04:25:00+00:00

On the way to Santa Fe, we visited Meteor Crater, a gigantic meteor imapct crater in the Arizona desert. It is 500 feet deep and nearly three-quarters of a mile wide:

It's kind of impossible to communicate how big the crater is with photographs, because it's also kind of hard to see how big it is in person. The crater lacks many good visual indicators for scale, so it almost looks smaller than it really is. It wasn't until our tour guide began pointing out small pieces of debris in the basin of the aircraft - abandoned mines, the wing of a crashed airplane, etc - that I realized how large the crater actually is.

The crater is privately owned by a group of families. Some of these families are the descendants of the people who purchased the land around the crater for cattle ranching, while the last family consists of people descended from the mining engineer who first tried searching for a meteor inside the crater. He apparently spent decades, and half a million dollars in back-then money, searching all over the crater for the gigantic pile of iron be believed he'd find underneath it. Unfortunately the iron meteorite actually completely exploded on impact, so there's nothing in the crater to find.

At some point, the families with ownership stakes in the crater realized that they could turn it into a major tourist attraction. They built a big museum on the rim and filled it with meteor-related science-museum exhibits. The funny thing is that they originally asked Frank Lloyd Wright to design the museum, but he designed something too enormous and deranged and ambitious to safely construct on the crater rim, which is all crumbled blown-apart rock. The actual sketches he submitted are framed on the wall of the museum outside the gift shop:

It was apparently supposed to look like a meteor striking the earth.

There are other things I saw in Arizona and New Mexico that I'd like to upload, but Bear is not acceping most image uploads from me at the moment. So you'll have to enjoy the one picture I managed to squeak in here before giving up for the night: this absolutely beautiful rest stop evacuation plan from a rest stop just inside the New Mexico border along Interstate 40:

It's a gorgeous piece of art, I think...

boy troubles

2026-05-20T04:17:42.513477+00:00

My car broke down recently. Which means I have less freedom than usual. I’ve been relying on my friend Izzy to get to class because we share a class together. Thank God it’s only one in person class this semester, rather than two. Last semester I had three in person classes and I was really annoyed with my statistics class, so I dropped it. Mostly because I can’t do math.

Anyways, it’s been quite nice here in Michigan. 75-95 degree weather with the bright yellow sun shining all proud in the sky. I begged Izzy to take me to the lake, and, obviously she didn’t. So I asked my high school crush, Arty. I offered him a cigarette, and he took me up on it. He had a nice car – a sports car, obviously, that he told me he got for $5,000 at an auction because it’d been in a car crash before. We made small talk and I swam for a bit at the river before lighting a cigarette for myself.

We sat at this little thing of concrete on the top of the hill that the river split in two somehow, and we just talked about life. I mentioned how much I hated high school and he said the same, and how I’m glad to be in college now even if I hate it. I have much more free time. And I like working this new job!! Even if it does get a bit boring. I asked him about his job (line cook? I think) and I mentioned how I missed having a job where I was always on the go. And then we fell silent. And then he kissed me. And we made out. And I was on top of the world after this. I told my friends. Because I have a loud mouth.

And now I’m being ghosted. Ugh. That’s really annoying. And I still don’t have a fucking ride to work. I wish talking to boys wasn’t so humiliating. I want to be able to tell you I like you and I have a big fat fucking crush on you without feeling like I’m doing something wrong!!! Is that too much to ask for?

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2026-05-20T04:09:19.684726+00:00

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What Happened at Target

2026-05-20T04:05:00+00:00

During the storm the lights flickered. Randy disappeared for an hour. A shelf of liquid body soap expired; no one noticed. That one lady (you know the one) returned two blouses & a Foreman grill. She had receipts. The rafter finch above soft goods shit on the nice bath mats. The Häagen-Dazs freezer decided to give up. Corporate sent too many emails about Circle bonus issues and the hiring pause. They remained unread. The generator didn't kick on when the power went out. We closed early, sat in the parking lot doing whippets while lightning did its thing & the wind sang along. Then the hail started, pea-sized & mean. I smoked a cigarette & watched it skitter across the hood. A cart made a break for it, rolled across the lot, bounced against a curb & slewed sideways. I smoked a cigarette, fell asleep. When I woke up, we were doing eighty in a sixty-five outside Lebanon, Illinois, cornfields a blur as rain drummed the windows. We passed a dairy barn. Wendy mooed & lowed & the rest of us laughed. No one remembers the crash. We stood around smoking while Randy tried to reverse out of the flooded ditch. No one could get a signal. I tried to text Drew & Nance at Fast Eddie's Bon Air. The messages didn't send. We left the car, walked to the high school, soaked. I ran out of cigarettes, somehow made it home. There was nothing in the fridge or on television. I dumped kibble in the cat's dish, took a shower, drank a warm beer. That night, I did not dream.

Oversharing in personal sites

2026-05-20T04:04:00+00:00

Right now there is a rejection of social media, so some people open personal sites (like the ones hosted on Neocities). In combination of the pandemic lockdown, there is a replication of social media usage in personal sites. What do I mean by that? People obsessing over interactions, numbers and mimicking social media's posts. There have been a resurgence of chatrooms to connect with strangers or the visitors can talk with the webmaster.

Without explicitly naming who and what, there have been harassment by anonymous snarkers to a person oversharing. A person should not face public scrutiny for sharing vulnerability. There is almost a golden standard to a personal site. You have to detox of all social media, no Google, no oversharing, no fansites, don't join too many webrings, etc, etc. Here's something to think about: who cares.

You can inform the person that they are perhaps oversharing, but you should not police how a site should be. If all personal sites are the same, it is no longer personal.

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历代志下第14章概览

2026-05-20T04:03:20.124477+00:00

亚撒王击败古实人

14:1 亚比雅与他祖先同睡，葬在大卫城，他的儿子亚撒接续他作王。亚撒在位期间，国中太平十年。

1-7节，是1节及列王纪上15章11节的证明。列王纪上15章12节记载亚撒铲除了国内卖淫的男女（娈童），及他先祖所立的一切偶像。历代志作者完全略去这些记载，用不同的词句，将虔诚及宗教热心，完全归于罗波安及亚比雅。但是他扩大了亚撒的改革，如同列王纪有关希西家及约西亚的记载，除掉邱坛（参阅列王纪下18章4, 22节；23章8节）。“邱坛”（高丘），即敬拜外邦神明的地方；按历代志下15章17节及列王纪上15章14节，亚撒没有毁掉敬奉耶和华的邱坛。“柱像”，是敬奉巴力的神像，象征太阳的光芒，无疑是“方尖石塔” (Species Obelisci) 的一种（参阅创世记28章18节；出埃及记34章13节；士师记3章7节）。“木偶”，即“亚舍拉”（参阅申命记7章5节；12章3节；16章21节）。“日像”（太阳柱），即敬奉太阳神的石柱（参阅历代志下34章4, 7节；利未记26章30节；以赛亚书17章8节；27章9节）。

14:2 亚撒行耶和华—他上帝眼中看为善为正的事，
14:3 除掉外邦的祭坛和丘坛，打碎柱像，砍下亚舍拉，
14:4 吩咐犹大人寻求耶和华—他们列祖的上帝，遵行他的律法和诫命，
14:5 又在犹大各城镇除掉丘坛和香坛。在他治理下，国中太平。
14:6 他在犹大建造了几座坚固城。那些年间，国中太平，没有战争，因为耶和华赐他平安。

“建造了几座坚固城”，城名不详，亚撒曾加修过迦巴及米斯巴二城，不过这是在他与巴沙（参阅列王纪上15章33节）作战以后的事（参阅历代志下16章6节）。修筑这些城的目的，大概与罗波安同（参阅历代志下11章5节等）。

14:7 他对犹大人说：“我们要建造这些城镇，四围筑墙，盖城楼，安门，做闩；地仍属于我们，因为我们寻求耶和华—我们的上帝；我们寻求他，他就赐我们四境平安。”于是他们建造城镇，诸事亨通。
14:8 亚撒的军兵，出自犹大拿盾牌拿枪的三十万人，出自便雅悯拿小盾牌拉弓的二十八万人；这些全都是大能的勇士。
14:9 古实人谢拉率领一百万军兵，三百辆战车，出来攻击犹大人，到了玛利沙。

“古实”，希腊文作麦罗埃 (Meroe)，阿卡德文作“密卢哈” (Miluhha)，或是埃及南部的“库苏” (Kusu)；圣经多称之为“埃塞俄比亚” (Ethiopia)，阿拉伯文则称之为“哈贝什” (Habesh)。“谢拉”（则辣黑），有人认为即埃及王示撒的继承者。“玛利沙”，为罗波安所筑城堡之一（参阅历代志下11章8节）。这次出征的目的，是在使犹大属于埃及统治之下，一如示撒对罗波安所做者（参阅历代志下12章8节）。

14:10 亚撒出去迎战，在玛利沙的洗法谷彼此摆阵。
14:11 亚撒呼求耶和华—他的上帝说：“耶和华啊，在强弱之间，惟有你能帮助。耶和华—我们的上帝啊，求你帮助我们，因为我们仰赖你，奉你的名来抵挡这大军。耶和华啊，你是我们的上帝，不要让人胜过你。”

11节，参阅历代志下13章15-16节。按特纽斯 (Thenius) 解释，列王纪上15章15节有关亚撒献出的战利品，促成了历代志作者这次胜利的记述。

上图：位于耶路撒冷西南、拉吉东北约6公里的桑达卡纳遗址（Tell Sandahannah），被认为就是玛利沙。

14:12 于是耶和华击打古实人，使他们败在亚撒和犹大人面前，古实人就逃跑了。
14:13 亚撒和跟随他的军兵追赶他们，直到基拉耳。古实人被杀的很多，无法复原，因为他们在耶和华与他军兵面前被击溃。犹大人夺了许多财物，
14:14 又攻打基拉耳四围一切的城镇；城中的人都惧怕耶和华。犹大人掳掠了一切的城镇，因其中的财物很多，
14:15 又毁坏了群畜的圈，夺取许多的羊和骆驼，就回耶路撒冷去了。

历代志下第13章概览

2026-05-20T04:02:51.562739+00:00

亚比雅与耶罗波安争战

（王上 15．1-8 ）

13:1 耶罗波安王十八年，亚比雅登基作犹大王，
13:2 在耶路撒冷作王三年。他母亲名叫米该亚，是基比亚人乌列的女儿。亚比雅常与耶罗波安交战。

“亚比雅”，按列王纪上15章2节仅作王三年，并简略记述他走了他父亲作恶的路；但因大卫的缘故，耶和华使他获得一线光明（参阅列王纪上15章1-8节）。历代志作者对亚比雅的作恶，没有暗示或讽喻，只在亚比雅与耶罗波安的战争记述内（参阅列王纪上15章7节），将亚比雅描写成一位制服北国的战胜者，原因是他的百姓“倚靠了耶和华”（18节）。“乌列的女儿”，按历代志下11章20节及列王纪上15章2节，玛迦是押沙龙的孙女，似乎乌列便是押沙龙的女儿他玛的丈夫（参阅历代志下15章16节注）。

13:3 有一次亚比雅率领四十万精选的士兵出战，他们都是勇敢的战士；耶罗波安也率领八十万精选的大能勇士，迎着亚比雅摆阵。
13:4 亚比雅站在以法莲山区中的洗玛脸山上，说：“耶罗波安和以色列众人哪，要听我说！

“洗玛脸山”，已不可考；在约书亚记18章22节为一城名，位于伯特利东南，犹大北陲。格茨伯格 (Goettsberger) 以为，即埃斯萨姆拉 (es-Samra) 旧址，位于耶利哥北部。

13:5 耶和华—以色列的上帝曾立盐约，将以色列国永远赐给大卫和他的子孙，你们不知道吗？

“洗玛脸山”（责玛辣因山岗），已不可考；在约书亚记18章22节为一城名，位于伯特利东南，犹大北陲。格茨伯格 (Goettsberger) 以为，即埃斯萨姆拉 (es-Samra) 旧址，位于耶利哥北部。

13:6 但大卫儿子所罗门的臣仆、尼八的儿子耶罗波安起来背叛他的主人。

“大卫儿子所罗门的臣仆”，参阅列王纪上11章11, 26-40节。

13:7 有些无赖的歹徒聚集跟从他，逞强攻击所罗门的儿子罗波安；那时罗波安还年轻，心志软弱，不能抵挡他们。

“无赖的歹徒”，亦可译作“彼列之辈”。彼列即“无用”、“无赖”的意思（参阅士师记9章4节；11章3节）。“年轻，心志软弱”，词意不甚正确，因为罗波安登基时，已四十一岁，绝不能说是“年轻，心志软弱”。不过亚比雅这样说，是因为他忧虑反对势力的凶猛，足以压倒罗波安，同时不愿将责任归于他父亲身上。按10章所载，罗波安是大胆专横的人。

13:8 “现在你们说要抗拒大卫子孙手下所治理的耶和华的国，你们的人数众多，你们那里又有耶罗波安为你们所造当作神明的金牛犊。

本节说明大卫子孙所掌管的耶和华的国家，是一合法的国家。

13:9 你们不是驱逐耶和华的祭司亚伦的后裔和利未人吗？不是照着外邦人的恶俗为自己立祭司吗？无论何人牵一头公牛犊、七只公绵羊将自己分别出来，就可作虚无神明的祭司。

9节，参阅列王纪上12章31节；13章33节。列邦民族，选任祭司时，不选举或不只限于利未支派及亚伦子孙（参阅出埃及记28章41节；29章9节；士师记17章5节）。“本不是神”，是指8节的“金牛犊”而言（参阅申命记32章17, 21节；耶利米书2章11节；5章7节）。

13:10 至于我们，耶和华是我们的上帝，我们并没有离弃他。我们有事奉耶和华的祭司，都是亚伦的后裔，并有利未人各尽其职。
13:11 他们每日早晚向耶和华献燔祭，烧芬芳的香，又在纯金的供桌上摆供饼，每晚点燃金灯台上的灯盏，因为我们遵守耶和华—我们上帝的命令，但你们却离弃了他。

11节，参阅出埃及记25章31, 33节；27章20-21节；29章38-42节；30章7节；利未记24章5-7节。

13:12 看哪，率领我们的是上帝，又有他的祭司拿号向你们吹出响声。以色列人哪，不要与耶和华—你们列祖的上帝争战，因你们必不能得胜。”
13:13 耶罗波安却在犹大人的后头设伏兵。这样，以色列人在犹大人的前头，伏兵在犹大人的后头。
13:14 犹大人转过来，看哪，前后都有战事，就呼求耶和华，祭司也吹号。
13:15 于是犹大人呐喊。犹大人呐喊的时候，上帝就击打耶罗波安和以色列众人，使他们败在亚比雅与犹大人面前。
13:16 以色列人在犹大人面前逃跑，上帝将他们交在犹大人手里。
13:17 亚比雅和他的军兵大大击杀以色列人，以色列人被杀仆倒的精兵有五十万。
13:18 那时，以色列人被制伏了。犹大人得胜，因为他们倚靠耶和华—他们列祖的上帝。
13:19 亚比雅追赶耶罗波安，攻取了他的几座城，就是伯特利和所属的乡镇，耶沙拿和所属的乡镇，以法拉音和所属的乡镇。

“耶沙拿”，按约瑟夫即艾因辛贾 (Ain Sinja)，位于伯特利北方。“以弗仑”，约书亚记15章9节记载的以弗仑山，与此处所载者，过于偏南。恐为俄弗拉 (Ophrah)，在伯特利附近（参阅约书亚记18章23节；士师记6章11节），或即名为以法莲的村庄（参阅约翰福音11章54节）。按约瑟夫，以法莲与伯特利距离甚近。

上图：19世纪的伯特利遗址（现名Beitin）照片。

13:20 亚比雅在世的时候，耶罗波安不再强盛；耶和华击打他，他就死了。

耶罗波安自这次的战败，在亚比雅在世的岁月中间，再没有强盛起来。根据历代志，他是在亚比雅去世后一至二年之间去世的（参阅列王纪上14章20节；15章9节）。根据本节的记载，他可能是在一种特殊的情况下离开人间的（参阅列王纪上14章10-12节）。

13:21 亚比雅却渐渐强盛。他娶了十四个妻妾，生了二十二个儿子，十六个女儿。
13:22 亚比雅其余的事和他的言行都写在易多先知的评传上。

亚比雅作王仅有三年，为此，在他未登基以前，已有了这些后妃及子女。历代志下11章21-23节的，可能包括在内（参阅11章）。

about

2026-05-20T04:01:20.153403+00:00

Hello, my identity is not hidden. My long-form rambles can be read at https://chilblands.bearblog.dev/

I prefer communication via email or guestbook.

犯错的时候不该说什么

2026-05-20T04:00:00+00:00

上周日，在去往和朋友聚会的地点之前，发生了一小起剐蹭事故。地点是一个并不宽裕的停车场，起因是我跟在一辆 SUV 之后，对方在直行和左转之间犹豫不决，最终选择了左转。

由于司机的犹豫，动作非常迟缓。转向一半时他似乎又反悔了，想要倒回主干道重新直行。全程我的车都处于静止状态，完全在等待他的选择，结果他倒车时直接把车尾顶到了我的车头。

虽然碰撞不严重，但物体相撞的震感是清晰的。相信开过车的朋友都有体会，这种力度的撞击司机不可能感知不到。然而他并没有立刻下车，而是试图往前开走。我迅速下车敲他的窗户，直到此时，他才知道我也发现了，躲不掉了。

他把车窗摇下来的第一句话是：「撞到了吗」。

这句话印证了他对自己行为的知情。我回答：「当然了」。他见状才下车来到我车前，用手抹了抹留在我车头上的两条橡胶痕。坦白说，伤势确实不大，我也并不想深究，但这种试图逃避的行为让我打算说他两句。

司机是一名中年男性，看起来不善言辞。副驾上下来一位女性，应该是他的妻子，从言谈举止间能看出她在家庭中的地位更高，但她显然对驾驶和事故处理并不熟悉，起初并未插话。司机尴尬地站在旁边，似乎在等我发话。

我说：「你开车小心一些」。他连忙点头。

我说：「就这样吧」。

或许是看我比较好说话，实际上我只是因为赶时间，极度讨厌在朋友聚会时迟到。就在那个女人转头准备上车时，她丢下了一句：「就是，又不严重，就还好」。

我立刻变了脸，回道：「还不还好，也不该由你来说吧？」。

她显得很诧异，大概以为事情已经化解了，不明白我为什么突然又「不愿意」了。她回头追问：「什么？」。

我直视她说：「是你们无缘无故撞了我，我还没说还好，你凭什么在那儿说还好？」。

看到我并非软弱可欺，刚才的大度也另有原因，她马上变了脸，连声道歉：「好的好的，你说的对」。我没再理会，擦掉橡胶痕，在他们再次启动之前先行离去。

发生事故固然是一件糟糕的事，如果程度轻微，确实可以称之为「还好」。但让我产生反感的并非事故本身，而是这些在生活中犯错的人，完全没有理解该如何面对一个全责在己的错误。

「还好」、「不严重」、「就这样吧」，这些话的语权到底属于谁？我认为绝对不是犯错者，而是受害者。

一个犯错者如果急于定性错误「不严重」，其核心反映的是极差的边界感。

在社交和法律的边界里，当你侵犯了他人的权益，无论这种侵犯是物质上的剐蹭，还是精神上的冒犯，评价受损程度的权利就自动转移到了对方手中。犯错者的职责是承认事实、表达歉意并提出补偿，而不是抢夺受害者的台词，替对方表达宽容。

这种行为在逻辑上是一种隐性的傲慢。当你说出「这点小事不至于」或者「还好没坏」时，你实际上是在否定对方受损的感受，试图通过缩小错误的影响来减轻自己的负罪感。这并不是在解决问题，而是在单方面要求受害者噤声。

在很多人的观念里，只要结果不严重，过程中的失职就可以被忽略。但责任的承担不应该只看结果的残余量，更应该看行为本身的定性。一个成熟的人在犯错时，最该闭嘴的时候就是试图为错误「减刑」的时候。

「还好」这两个字，只有从受害者口中说出来，才叫大度；从犯错者口中说出来，那叫推卸。

may 19 msg

2026-05-20T03:59:00+00:00

I just watched the Cleveland Cavaliers choke away Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals and I've got a question. Do you think it feels like we collectively seem to think it feels when you give a very important game away, little by little, and then all at once? It has to, right? And, moreover, if it does in fact feel as bad as we think, you'd also have to think there will be something truly profound and maybe even sublime waiting down the line to make it feel like this truly horrible experience could possibly be worth it in the long run. You'd simply have to.

I don't know what happens after you die but I think that because we don't know, it doesn't matter. Sure, there are spook stories about the place with the fire and the brimstone, and, sure, those spook stories have pretty much always been about bamboozling people and relieving them of their money, but that doesn't mean anything. We don't know. So what's the point of worrying about it? That said, I am terrified of death. I am terrified of death but not because I worry about what's on the other side, but, rather, within the context of it representing life not lived. This is, I suppose, a statement about life. I still want to do so many things, man. I still want to do so many things. And see so many things. And know so many more people. I'm bumping up against 48 years young in a few weeks and I am moved —— and kind of impressed —— by the length and breadth of the list of things I still want to do while I can capably pilot this meat mech.

I don't know what happens after you die but I do know that Laura Juškaitė is a hell of a hooper and feel true joy when I remember that she plays for my team. The Toronto Tempo and the Phoenix Mercury are playing a heck of a ballgame right now. It'll probably end before I finish writing this, though.

Or maybe not.

But, yeah, I think that just about

...
....
.....
......
.......
........
.........
..........
...........
............
.............

does it.

Ballgame.

TOR 98
PHX 90

🌲 ~~gonna~~ let's
🌼 go
🌱 ~~touch~~ tempo
🌳 ~~grass~~ clap clap
🌷 ~~now~~ clapclapclap

Be good to yourself.

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Mis enlaces

2026-05-20T03:54:00+00:00

Enlaces que me involucran

● vylcam.com web de Verde y los Caballos a Marte. Banda de la que soy parte. Digamos, space-rock.

● Veliko zine fanzine, revistita, que realizo con algunxs colaboradores. Descarga en PDF.

● satelitedeamor.com Web-zine de música, entrevistas, reseñas, experiencias, cultura DIY.

● Radio Satélite radio online transmitiendo las 24 hs

Enlaces que quiero recomendar

● AgalmaZineletter.substack.com reseñas y recomendaciones de música independiente por Claudio Kobelt. Periodista y Lord de la noche.

● goodenough.us un grupo de desarrolladores web de US con ideas super bonitas y útiles.

● indiego.com.ar una ya mítica radio online de música independiente, transmitiendo desde Buenos Aires.

Life is Not a Series of TikTok Clips

2026-05-20T03:46:00+00:00

I have a love hate relationship with TikTok. It eats up a lot of my time, and I cannot bring myself to remove it from my phone. Occasionally, I would scroll through the videos after a long day at office. It is a form of escape and also looking at something that is outside of my life.

Sometimes, TikTok contains profound wisdom. I recalled watching a clip that says - "Your life is not a series of TikTok clips". All the videos that I saw are merely highlights of the creator. My son once told me that it takes about 20 hours to write, produce, shoot and edit a 11-minute video.

When I doom scroll through TikTok videos, I do wish my life can be different and easier. The creators are only showing us the best sides of their life. We never know what is going in behind that camera. Our life is not a series of clips but a series of moment that are difficult, boring, frustrating and peppered with happiness.

Instead of doom scrolling through video clips, maybe it is time to put down the phone. Start doing the boring stuffs such as cleaning up the room, get some exercise. Or finally start the personal project which you have been putting off since the start of the year. It is not very exciting, but it brings calm and happiness. We don't need drama but boredom.

driving home alone

2026-05-20T03:37:00+00:00

Driving home alone late at night,
I become aware that I'm in a movie-
a moving me-
and this is the scene where I drive
till I arrive where I'm supposed to be

every thought that passes through my mind:
words describing an image,
a vision from another place and time

everything that's happened up until now:
another twist that no one saw coming
because they couldn't see how

as the perfect song plays
and visibility waxes and wanes
as the wipers push aside the rain
everything is resolved
in the day's first moment of clarity

the only thing missing is the rest of the cast
but I will see them again soon, in a whole new light

~

2005 - 2010

trying to imagine sisyphus happy

2026-05-20T03:36:58.646379+00:00

It's 10:44 PM. I went into the office today — my 11th day in a row — and after coming home spent the entire evening indoors. No plans, no evening walk, nothing. Maybe that's why I haven't been able to sleep, in spite of my best efforts to unwind; I read for a bit, meditated, and journaled to no avail. Now I've resorted to an old friend, the word vomit.

I haven't done one of those word vomits in so long I can hardly believe I used to do these regularly. I think that speaks to a lot of things: the power of habit, for one; but also the kind of anguish I was feeling at one time; and the effects city life has had on me. The noise, the distractions good and bad, the soul-sucking exhaustion of commuting and working in person.

Today at work my supervisor told us in a team meeting that she's been pushing for us to add another member to the team. Leadership has resisted her efforts thus far, so to bolster her claims she's asked (the two of) us to document how we spend our hours in a typical week.

I have a lot of feelings about this. It's impossible for me to capture a typical week. There is no typical week at this job. My workload waxes and wanes drastically; some weeks it's very slow and others I'm forced to clock overtime to get things done. That's the nature of our kind of work: we're at the mercy of the tides and sometimes the waves come in all at once.

The other thing is this: for the most part, I'm not really operating near full capacity. I'm certainly busier now than when I started, for which I am somewhat grateful, but I don't feel like that I'm being stretched to my limits yet. But what is that supposed to mean anyway? Does full capacity mean working nonstop from the moment I get into the office at 9 AM until the moment the clock reads 5? Theoretically, I could spend, I don't know, five or six of the seven hours of my day at my desk actively working on tasks. But would that be sustainable for me long term? Do we really need to fill every cup to the brim just to justify getting a new cup? Am I not allowed to go home after work each day with some energy left over for me to do something for myself? Even as it stands with my glass half-full, many days I barely have the energy to do anything other than lay down quietly after work until it's time to go to bed, let alone see anyone or learn something new or work on something productive.

I also realize that unless I somehow make a convincing misrepresentation of my time at work, this inquiry will lead to me getting more work. I've accepted it as a fact of corporate life, that people will always try to squeeze more out of me. I'm more concerned that me shouldering more of the load won't help my supervisor's situation. She seems to be unwilling or unable to distribute most of her workload to me, either because I don't have the experience or because it's more efficient for her to do it alone, so adding another entry-level employee would only really lessen my workload and not hers. And the amount of work we get, especially useless, inane work, keeps increasing. Maybe a new teammate would help stem the tide for a bit, but if they keep making up things for us to do — a newsletter here, a pet project there — there's no end in sight.

I'm a little worried my boss will burn out and end up quitting. (The position of supervisor on our team is a bit like the Defense of the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts.) In spite of our differences in working and writing styles, I would rather keep her than roll the dice with someone new. She is at the very least kind and forgiving with me, which I've learned the hard way is the only thing that matters in a boss.

In the afternoon I stepped out of the office to go pick up a book from the library. While dodging graduates bedecked in robes and bankers in suits I observed that that very walk was probably going to be the highlight of my day and I felt so completely crushed, both from that and from the morning I had spent glued to the screen, handling tasks that were completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things and likely making the already awful state of the world a little bit worse and being wholly unable to express this agony to anyone at work.

When I feel like this I try to change my perspective by thinking things like isn't this the life you always wanted? In many ways, it is. I live in a big city with many of my best friends and I'm (relatively) healthy and I can afford my medications and I can travel and do many of the things I want to do. I was at a party this weekend telling someone about my teaching job and she said something about how it must be really fulfilling to teach kids how to write. Yes, I'd thought, the kids can be annoying and lazy and downright disrespectful at times, the job comes with its own brand of bullshit, and there are good days and bad days and really bad days, but it always feels real, never meaningless. And that's not something I can say about corporate.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I'm Watching a Humanoid Robot Sort Packages

2026-05-20T03:31:32.073952+00:00

There's a livestream running of a humanoid robot sorting packages. It picks packages off a chute on its left, orients them label-down, and pushes them onto a conveyor belt on its right. Over and over. Twenty-four hours a day. It's fascinating!

The robot is called Figure 03. It's impressive in ways that are hard to convey without watching it. It stands on its own two legs. It keeps it self stable while moving its weight around with its arms and body working. When it reaches for a package that's slightly too far away, it leans forward to grab it. It lifts its left arm to avoid clipping a metal wall whenever it turns toward the chute. Its head with the cameras on is swaying and moving while keeping track of the packages.

My favourite movement is when it flips a cardboard box. It hinges the box with its fingers, swings it, and lands it in the correct orientation. When it works, it looks like a magic trick.

It often has a failure of depth perception and tries to pick up a package an inch closer than it is. If it fails to pick it up five or six times in a row, it enters what I'd call a reset state. Arms come up to chest height, it repositions its feet, seems to do a kind of software reset, and then comes back to life and starts again.

When a specific placement of packages in front of it looks weird to it, you can see its body language get confused. It oscillates between packages, not quite deciding what to do. This happens until some package movement jostles it free from its purgatory or the reset kicks in. I think there's person off-camera with what looks like a broom handle, nudging packages down the chute when the robot gets stuck.

It has a habit of flinging one in every hundred packages off the side of the conveyor belt. It sometimes orients packages wrong. It's a bit of an event for chat when something does go wrong.

None of this diminishes the feat of engineering here. I love it all.

Some movements are repetitive and feel statically scripted. It doesn't necessarily feel like genuinely completely general adaptive robotics, but I'm not a robotics engineer. When I went down the rabbit hole of reading about this, a lack of training data is the problem that apparently underlies all of robotics AI right now.

The thing that made language models take off was the sheer abundance of training data on the internet. Text, code, images. Robotics isn't the same. There's no corpus of what the world looks like from inside a body that's moving through it, and what physical actions those perceptions lead to. There are companies trying to build the training data, but my instinct tells me it doesn't seem possible at the same scale.

I had a small version of this problem when working on a drone-based roof inspection tool. We were trying to build a vision model to detect damage from aerial footage of UK rooftops. We had to build the training set ourselves. A hundred rooftops wasn't enough data. You need thousands, hundreds of thousands. The model couldn't generalise across tile types, lighting conditions, weather. Even pre-processing down to edge detection didn't fix it. You need huge amounts of data. I imagine something similar is going on here.

This isn't the first livestream that's caught me like this. There was the AI-generated Seinfeld parody that ran endlessly on Twitch. There was a puddle in Newcastle that briefly became a national event when someone set up a camera pointing at it and streamed it on Periscope. There was also a dumpster fire livestream in 2020, with a printer you could email so your message would be fed into the flames.

Something about all of them, and this, is that you're watching something real unfold with no editorial layer on top of it. No cuts, no narrative, no one telling you what to think. Just the thing itself, doing what it does.

I'm not sure whether I keep watching because I'm waiting for it to fail or because I'm rooting for it. Probably both.

Munataka Shiko

2026-05-20T03:00:00+00:00

Hijos de la naturaleza

Pienso que el grabado es la antítesis técnica y conceptual de la imagen armada por la IA.

Grabas con tus manos (humanas) sobre una superficie (física), cada trazo es eterno, cada corte determina el carácter de la obra. Una superficie contra otra, un viaje inmediato de tinta, como un golpe o una caricia, todo depende de la intención del autor, o del material diría Munataka.

Después de imprimir de testigo queda no solo una estampa (la imagen grabada), sino tambien un grabado (que es realmente la placa o matriz) es imagen pero también tiene algo escultural en su naturaleza, es sofisticado pero primitivo a la vez.

Sobre Munataka

Munataka Shiko es uno de los grabadores mas expresivos e interesantes que conozco, su filosofía alrededor de la creación artística realmente me fascina. Existen videos de su proceso, era rápido, confiaba totalmente en su mano, la gubia y la madera. No tenia tiempo para tener miedo al error, o tal incluso en su mundo no existía tal cosa.

Quiero compartir un fragmento del texto introductorio de un folleto perteneciente a una exhibición de su obra en el museo Royal Watercolour Society Galleries en mayo de 1961, escrito por Robert Erskine;

"Munakata insiste en que es la combinación de las cualidades del artista y del material lo que crea una obra de arte, y no la contraparte del artista. «Aconsejo al profano», dice, «que extienda tinta china sobre una tabla sin tallar, coloque papel encima e imprima. Obtendrá una impresión negra, pero el resultado no es la negrura de la tinta, sino la negrura de la impresión. Ahora bien, el objetivo es darle a esta impresión mayor vida y mayor fuerza tallando su superficie. Todo lo que tallo lo comparo con una impresión sin tallar y me pregunto: "¿Cuál tiene más belleza, más fuerza, más profundidad, más magnitud, más movimiento y más tranquilidad?". Si hay algo aquí que sea inferior a un bloque sin tallar, entonces no he creado mi impresión: he perdido contra la tabla».

Munakata trabaja en un estado de frenesí, agachado en el suelo con sus herramientas y su bloque, como un chamán poseído por el demonio en trance. Solo trabaja cuando le llega la inspiración, rara vez realiza trabajos por encargo y posterga tanto la impresión de sus planchas que es la desesperación de los marchantes y sus clientes. Tampoco es capaz de imprimir sus grabados en color con los mismos colores, y siempre hay variaciones extremas entre una impresión y otra.

Los japoneses llaman a estas personas «shizen-ji», hijos de la naturaleza, y la expresión se usa para describir el carácter de cierto tipo de personalidad obstinada, a modo de título, y quienes reciben esta descripción gozan del máximo respeto. A lo largo de la historia del arte japonés, se han liberado de las convenciones del lenguaje y se les tolera, incluso se les admira, por sus excesos más extremos de comportamiento. El reconocimiento de un «shizen-ji» es instintivo y no se adquiere oficialmente con una copa de plata otorgada por un comité de expertos. Más bien, se trata de una racionalización de las dificultades que experimentamos en Occidente al referirnos a Rembrandt o Miguel Ángel como «artistas», cuando el mismo término se aplica a un talento menor, o incluso a la ausencia total de talento."

Munataka Shiko, fue un grabador japonés nacido en 1903, ligado al movimiento mingei (arte popular).

-"It is inherent in the woodcut that it can never be ugly" Munataka Shiko

Liga al folleto: https://archive.org/details/stg-munakata-cat

dying

2026-05-20T02:48:27.277193+00:00

i'm so sick of death and true crime content and people being killed or getting sick or dying too young or the fascination with all of this, both out of the lack of empathy for the victims and just on a personal level

i was listening to a podcast earlier about the murder of anastasia witbolsfeugen and then i had the idea of googling her and found this beautiful tribute website that's been active for two decades and got even more upset - its stasia.org, if you're curious

so, i shouldn't have gone on to reddit after that but i did and was reading this person sharing the story of how they found their dad deceased and i think i've found a new fear! but how do you even avoid that in life? everyone is going to die, i just wish i could create a distance between myself and it. i hope that doesn't sound cruel or selfish

books to, like, ATTEMPT to read this summer

2026-05-20T02:44:52.048602+00:00

weather: ☀️ feeling hot hot hot
critters: black and white cat in someone's yard

over the water: seems like it has high potential as a summer book

autobiography of red: or anything by anne carson, but autobiography of red is the one i have closest to hand

our moon: i love the moon and moon lore

candy and the candy men: trash + backstory of the trash

cosmicomics: started this at the beach and have yet to finish it. i should go to the beach and do that

dear sir or madam

2026-05-20T02:44:00+00:00

business reply by mail
now 10% more free
dear sir or madam
this area under 24 hour surveillance
please visit us again soon
not ready to eat, cook thoroughly
use in a well ventilated area
limited warranty
for a limited time only
some restrictions may apply
give them a gift they'll remember
5 tips to change your life
5 ways you can save money
5 foods you should never eat
5 marriage mistakes you could be making
5 dollar foot looooongs!
this offer is not valid in Texas

~

2004 - 2008

blooming

2026-05-20T02:38:00+00:00

I awaken in the night to find myself lying on the lawn of a church. not one of those new-age churches that look like space ships, but a brick-and-mortar church, built from big gray stones decorated with flowery accents and stained glass windows

I can't remember anything
the ground is wet
I don't know who I am
what is this in my pocket?

a car starts up in the distance, and drives off, but I'm too entranced to concern myself with it. the spotlights illuminating the spires have begun to shift. the gray facade becomes purple, then pink, then red, and I feel like a dandelion blooming in the darkness

~

2004 - 2008