Some People See a Christmas Miracle

I see people whose expensive medical services my tax dollars will now pay for.
Welcome to California!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/22/migrant-caravan-families-asylum-honduras-california

This is the Good Shit: Sewa vs. Luan

This is one of the all-time best games of skate. Believe it.

Cloud Containers and 'Pets vs. Cattle': Stop Already

Let's get this out of the way up front: I eat meat every day (though not much beef), without exception. I have done so for years, and will continue to do so. I also try to be honest and informed about the consequences of that choice. This post is about the consequences of language, and how smart people can also be very dumb.

I have had to give more than a few presentations over the past couple years (and sat through many, many more) where the advantage of cloud containers was explained in detail. When I sat through them the analogy of 'pets vs. cattle' was used almost every time. It's a popular analogy, and there are even lengthy blog posts codifying what exactly is meant by 'pets' and 'cattle' in your network architecture, and Randy Bias, who asserts in his twitter bio that he is a 'disruptor', claims to have started the meme for cloud architectures. Weird flex, but okay.

Here's the thing: the analogy makes a lot of sense if you are a network architect that has never given much thought to why cattle are 'disposable', and if you are not much given to introspection on how they are disposed of. If you consider only a fairly narrow perspective then yeah, it's fine, works well. If you think only briefly about what you mean when you use the word 'disposable', then the analogy is dumb as shit. You're talking about killing things, and only people that have never killed an animal and sociopaths talk about animals in that way.

Nowadays when I give the cloud presentations I use an heirloom china vs paper plate analogy instead, mainly so as not to have to suggest the idea that deleting a container instance is the same as killing an animal. People are emotionally attached to their heirloom china, care for it, look after it, and keep it for a long time. Paper plates are single use and truly disposable. Also they have much in common with a cloud server in that they are not a living thing that you have to kill, which, hey, that's nice. Tough luck for the trees, sure, but when you come up with a better analogy let me know and I will use that one instead.

It looks like you and I and everyone else that works in tech will continue to have to listen to this tired pets vs. cattle analogy for many years to come. Eventually Randy B. and his wack twitter account will disrupt off into the sunset / fade into obscurity, and the cloud will become so ubiquitous and widely understood that we will no longer have to explain it at all. That day cannot come soon enough. Until then: try heirloom china vs. paper plates. It's good. I promise.

Civics Lessons for Adults: The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

I have been getting caught up on my reading, most recently finishing The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis. It is a very good and very timely summary of the work done (and not done) by the Trump transition team. The lesson is that the corruption and grift currently underway in Washington will have long-term damaging effects. 

You should care about this if you have kids, or if your friends have kids. Or not. It's hard to pay attention to this kind of thing when you are a busy person with things to do. I get it; youtube is not going to watch itself, after all. But if you can carve out the time, then it's a very good and easy read. I got through the book in two sittings, and you could probably do the same. 

The alternative is to just leave all this to someone else, and complain that 'they're all the same' and 'all politicians lie' and so forth and so on, but I have to tell you: it's not working out to your advantage. So pay attention to some small aspect of what is going on with your government, so that you can make an informed decision in 2020. 

The Whitest Playlist Ever Made

Omar, a true hero, put together this glorious 'Sunday music and hot coffee..' [sic] playlist for you, my dear listener. It's the iphone-commercial soundtrack aggregator you never knew you needed. Maybe very slightly dated now, but these are the hits, and as such have held up well. I wish homie would update it with some new cuts, but you can't have everything. If ever I need some generically pleasant and chill music to rock out to then this is what I reach for. You could do worse, is what I'm saying.

If you want to take advantage of more of Omar's strong work on the playlist front, then go to the playlist section of his soundcloud page. He's still hustling, posting a new list as recently as 6 days ago. I haven't had a chance to get into that one yet, but likely this week. I'm not busy, if you hadn't heard.

I hope the good and chill jams find you well.

It's the Little Things

I spend a lot of time alone, and as a solo middle-aged person the only kids I interact with are those of my friends. They are good kids, and sometimes they do things that warm my otherwise cold, dead heart. As when they make me a placeholder for Thanksgiving dinner. 

I made a pumpkin pie. They made me smile. I'll take that trade 100 times out of 100. 

T2: Trainspotting and Selective Memory

My love it kills me slowly,
Slowly I could die...

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Caught up with the sequel to Trainspotting (officially: T2 Trainspotting) over the weekend. The movie will probably appeal to you if you saw and liked the original. If not, enh, it's probably fine as a standalone, but you might want to see the original first.

I loved the original, and watched it over and over again on my friend Esteeb's couch back in 1997. Partly because it was both hysterically funny and very grim, and that suits me right down to the ground. Also partly because I was pining over a girl who, in the parlance of the time, kicked me to the curb. That girl was fun while it lasted, but the fallout was severe. Back in those days I was not very well balanced at the best of times, so the breakup sent me into a tailspin, and I spent a few months drinking myself to sleep with 40s of Magnum and trainspotting on the TV. If Esteeb was bothered he never mentioned or showed it, and eventually I got my shit together. Mostly together, anyway. Ish. Together-ish.

The latest Trainspotting movie is very much an examination of what the four central characters have, or haven't, done with their lives in the past 20 years. So: if the original resonated with you at all, and if - just to choose an example at random - you are a middle-aged man that feels like reflecting on what became of his youth, his successes, and his failures, then the movie might speak to you in very interesting ways. Depends where it finds you, I guess.

The song above is an extended-ending remix of a Wolf Alice jam that appears at the end of the movie. The original is great, but the best part is the final chorus, so stretching that out gives it some extra. I loved it. YMMV. Download the MP3 here.

Bringing things up to the present day: Esteeb remains one of my closest friends, all these many years later. A couple months ago he asked me over lunch, 'hey, do you remember that girl with the reddish-blonde hair you dated in college?'

I said, 'the one that I was all bummed about for a while? The hot one?'

He said, 'yeah, that one - I see her at church sometimes.'

I laughed and said, 'Oh yeah?'

'Yeah, I see her, and all I can remember about her is that you shagged her.'

And thus sometimes friendship looks like ignoring my lame drama from back in the day, and focusing on the positive. Esteeb remains the best.
Thanks for reading.

Thanksgiving 2018

Desktop Wallpaper Courtesy PDW (link below)

It's been an interesting runup to Thanksgiving this year. I have not posted much because much of what I feel most strongly about is political, and you are probably more sick of interacting with politics than I am by now. I have finished several books in the past few months, and those are usually good for some blog content, but somehow between the time my ideas ferment in my tiny brain and I sit down to type up the words something gets lost: motivation, relevance, value, and much else. So here we are.

I lost my job a couple weeks ago. The layoff was not a surprise; my company got acquired and I started looking for a new job several months ago in advance of any bad news from my employer. My hope was to have a new job lined up and collect a severance, but it did not work out. Got an 8 week severance, which is better than nothing but still not great. The Feds tax lump-sum severance pay like a bonus, so they get around 45% of it. So I got about 4 weeks of pay, after taxes. Glad to get the money, but it's not much to live on. Fortunately I keep my fixed costs relatively low compared to my total income, so I am not in dire straits right now. Biggest cost after rent is health insurance, which is around $700 a month. (If I had a family or dependents it would be 3x that much.) So I can keep the lights on for a while while I look for a new gig. 

The hardest part was that I have not been unemployed for over 20 years, all the way back to when I was still in college. The absence of work and a related set schedule was very demotivating. Why do anything today when I can do it tomorrow? Why get something done in the morning when you can do it in the afternoon? Rinse, repeat. Instead of handling my business in a timely fashion I push it back, over and over again. Not my usual pattern, and not one that I want to continue. 

People have been telling me to 'enjoy my time off'. That's a nice idea, but it is very difficult to 'enjoy your time off' when you do not know how long it will be, and, most especially: I'M NOT EARNING ANY FUCKING MONEY. No idea why people think that is 'enjoyable', but I have heard it so many times that I now gently remind them, 'hey, you know I don't have a job, right? And I still have bills to pay?' No doubt there are people that are very comfortable with that state of affairs. I am not one of them. 

So! Thanksgiving. Being jobless frees me up to ride my bike, and to make treats. So I have been making cookies, and banana bread, and some pies. And riding the bike. Fun for me. I hope that your Thanksgiving is abundant in foods and good company. It gets no better. 

See you out there.


Prometheus Design Werx desktop wallpaper here. 

What are the best cycling bib shorts?

Just Two Men In Tights at Sunset

Updated 17 Nov 2018 to move the Rapha Pro Bib Shorts II to the bottom of the list. The leg grippers are defective, and after getting two new pairs of shorts from Rapha the gripper issue is worse, not better. Unacceptable in a short at any price point, but especially at $275 a pair.
*****

TLDR: it depends on your anatomy, physiology, saddle, and riding style. If you change saddles you may notice that some bibs do not work for you, so once you find a combination that works, stick with it, and change with caution.
I liked Rapha Pro and Eliel Laguna Seca or Hollywood shorts (the chamois is the same in the Eliel shorts, so either one is good).

//
I tested a bunch of different bib shorts over the past year in an effort to find something that I liked. Price is a factor because they can get expensive; I got all of mine at some type of discount, either on sale or through a contact at Competitive Cyclist, so you can do the same. I put at least 10 hours in the saddle on each set of shorts, with a two hour minimum for each test ride (after initial break in rides of about an hour). I tried two different saddles (more on that shortly), across several months and these are the bib shorts and saddle combinations that worked for me.

A few words on fit: I am barely six feet tall, with a 32" inseam and a long torso. I have a 34" waist, and wear a 42" regular suit coat. I weigh about 190 lbs, and I am built like a sprinter, not a GC rider. Most of my riding is leaned forward, with my wrists and forearms on the bars, or on the drops. So I roll my hips forward to flatten out my spine and reduce flexion. I used a Specialized Phenom saddle for several months before switching to a Specialized Power saddle (143 mm width).

Tested, in descending order of preference:

1.  Eliel Hollywood Bib Shorts in size L - Excellent shorts, and no issues with either saddle in any riding position. All day comfortable. These are their priciest model, but you can get the same chamois and build quality in their Laguna Seca short. Made right here in California, which is important considering how hard it is to run a small manufacturing business in this state.

2. Specialized RBX Pro in size L - Good shorts, suited for long days in the saddle. The best thing about these shorts is that you can often find them on sale for $125 or less, which is a good price for a premium bib. They are extremely plush, and aimed squarely at maximum comfort. I rated them higher than the Giordana shorts because they fit me better and are easy to find for half as much money.

3. Giordana Lungo Bib Shorts in size L - Good shorts, but not well suited to my body / saddle. They are beautifully made in Italy, with a light, technical fabric and a seamless chamois and only one seam on the legs. You can tell they were designed and assembled with some considerable care, as they hardly weigh anything and it's very hard to make a garment in this way. They feel fine when you first get them on, but I did not get along with them very well with the Phenom saddle. After switching to the Power saddle things improved, but they are still not a great fit for me and I cannot wear them comfortably on a ride longer than an hour. I keep them in the rotation because it's too late to return them, but I would not buy them again. It's a shame, because the fit and finish of the shorts is top notch, and the shorts are superb aside from fitment.

4. Assos T.tiburu_s7 Bib Shorts - These are their cold-weather bibs, and I am not very impressed by them. Build quality is fine, but the chamois does not agree with me at all. Also the front of the short stops well below my belly button, which seems very odd when compared with other insulated bibs I own from Rapha. Moreover the insulation is weak as hell, and they do not actually keep you very warm. Reviewers on Comp Cyclist say they are 'fantastic' and 'extremely warm', but I am here to tell you they are 'not worth it' and 'not for you if you like the way a Rapha Pro Team chamois fits'. Some riders like them a lot, but my experience is that there are better options elsewhere. YMMV

5. Rapha Pro Team Bib Shorts II in size XL- Good shorts until the elastic fails, which happened even before I wore the most recent set on an actual ride. Comfortable, good chamois suitable for most types of riding. The elastic at the very bottom of the leg does not grip as well as it should at the very edge of the cuff. This has happened on both of the Rapha Pro Team bibs that I own, and I think in their next iteration the leg opening will be smaller to correct this issue. $270 a pair it should not happen. It's beyond a cosmetic issue - it flaps in the wind. For reference my legs are 47 cm around where the bibs should sit.

That's my experience. Hope it was helpful.
See you out there. 

Michelle Obama

It's been a few years so it's hard to remember what it was like in the time before the current mentally defective president was elected, and we didn't have a caricature of Disney cartoon villains living in the White House.

Let this article remind you of what it was like to have two intelligent, thoughtful, strong people working together in the White House: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2018/nov/17/michelle-obama-interviewed-miley-cyrus-katy-perry-becoming

The gulf in intellect, manners, class, and ability between the Obamas and the current clowns is so wide you could fit the Milky Way inside it. Also, not for nothing, but Trump is the one who was gifted 400 million dollars from his father. The Obamas come from working-class backgrounds. Money can buy you the presidency, but it cannot buy competence.

Congratulations to the American voter. Again.

Addiction, Again

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. For friends and family that stop by this space - I am not addicted to harmful drugs (my only vices are exercise and sugar), but I do exhibit addictive behaviors if, for example, I am prevented from going to the gym. Understanding why this happens is useful.

I Hope You Voted

Have you had all the electioning you can stand? Me too.
Here's a very good video about dragonflies and damselflies.

You Can't Quit Cancer, But You Can Quit Doing Oxy

Is drug addiction a disease? Per Websters: "a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms".

Brief aside: The Obama administration classified it as a disease and now you can't throw a rock in Orange County without hitting a sober living home. Almost all of them are for-profit centers, with a minimal emphasis on rehab, and a maximal emphasis on making money. They have no incentive to actually help people, because anyone that relapses can just go back into 'treatment'! Thanks Obama! Signed: A 2x Obama Voter

Recently a eulogy for a pretty white girl that died of a drug overdose went viral. There's a lot to unpack here. First, there's the wide range of very empathetic and very useless writeups about the eulogy itself, custom designed to tug at your heartstrings. Add all that digital ink to the ever-expanding list of useless responses to the eulogy that explain how the woman who died is 'in a better place' or 'with God now', which is just more lies people tell themselves so that they feel better about something bad.*

The woman appeared to have had every opportunity to stop doing drugs: an infinite number of second chances from her enabling family, resources for repeated stints in rehab, even support from the system, based on the fact that she "befriended and delighted cops, social workers, public defenders, and doctors, who advocated for and believed in her till the end." (The outcome suggests that their limited energies and resources would have been best allocated elsewhere.) On top of that she had a son, who was the light of her life or some shit, and she could not stay clean even for him. Getting high was the most important thing in her life, and eventually it killed her.

The thing about a 'disease' like drug addiction is that you can cure it simply: stop doing drugs. I do not suggest that this is easy - many things that are simple are not easy (like making biscuits, or dunking a basketball). But as solutions go, it does not get much more simple than that. Consider a different disease, such as lung cancer. How do you cure lung cancer? After decades of intensive research, no one knows! They just poison you until the cancer gives up and hope you don't die in the process. Even this 'success' is a postponement, since the cancer usually comes back and kills you later on. So good luck quitting cancer.

What about a mental illness like depression? You cannot quit being depressed any more than you could quit having a cold. You either wait it out, or you get treatment, or both. Drug addiction has more in common with depression than it does with cancer, but is it a disease?

Sam Harris (and others) assert that there is no such thing as free will. You are beholden to the exceedingly complex circuitry of your brain. It might make you feel depressed, or happy, or make you eat too much, or exercise too much, or commit acts of violence, or acts of kindness, or it might make you do absolutely anything to feel that sweet, sweet feeling provided by the opiates. If addiction is a disease, then it is a disease of the brain, and no part of the current justice system is treating it the right way. I doubt very much that there are many rehab or treatment centers that are doing much to solve the problem cure this disease either.

Armed with that knowledge we can infer that addiction is a disease, and we can also stop making excuses for the people that are afflicted. There has to be some way to treat addicts that will help them stop hurting other people. However, even in the absence of a cure there is no need to feel sympathy for people that fail to get their shit together over and over and over again. Maya Angelou said it well: When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

* E.g. 'Everything happens for a reason' - yes, it does, and sometimes the reasons are random and bad, because the universe is cruel and unforgiving and someday everyone and everything you have ever loved will die, including you. 

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN: Decorative Gourd Season

Do you know what time it is? Yeah you do. It's time to get freaky with those gourds, because it's decorative gourd season, motherfuckers!

Don't take my word for it. Consult the holy writ, and be inspired.

"You're either ready to reap this freaky-ass harvest or you're not." - Jesus the Son of God, probably

Change is Overdue

The United States is currently being governed by a minority of its citizens. How did this happen?

The electoral college, which was created to appease slave states because of their low voting populations, continues to skew the results of the only national election. This is absurd.

Decades of gerrymandering congressional districts has dramatically skewed representation for one party at the expense of another. This is absurd.

The US Senate gives the same number of Senators to a state like Wyoming (pop. 480,000) as it does to California (pop. 48,000,000). This is absurd.

Abolish the Senate. End gerrymandering. Abolish the electoral college. Equal representation under the law is one of the reasons the republic was founded. People do not vote in part because they have no access to representation. Removing these barriers will go some way towards helping that. So will limiting the money in politics, but we can solve that problem in another post.

Jury Duty

I had jury duty a few weeks ago. It was a good and horrifying up-close look at the justice system. I hope to never, ever have to be involved in a jury trial for any reason, mainly because people are dumb, and also because attorneys have no interest in a fair or impartial trial. They want to win (as they should do), but if your starting pool is a collection of morons that didn't even know how to avoid the summons* then your ending group is going to be... not good. You can get get a lot of things from the US justice system but you don't get justice.

* I am a member of that group. Pro tip: throw the summons in the trash. No one is going to come after you, they don't have the budget for it. 

We Found Them!

The Guardian went looking for the dumbest fucking people on planet earth, and quelle surprise, they found them at a Trump rally. (Why is Trump having rallies in the middle of his presidency? That is very weird and fascist and... I think I just answered my own question. NM)

You can read the whole thing here. Or if you prefer to avoid exposing yourself to infinite quantities of abject stupidity, maybe skip it.

I Believe Her

This is the face of a man that attempted to rape a 15 year old girl. He was 17 at the time. The incident itself happened a long time ago, way back in 1982, when both of them were at a high school party.

Memory is famously unreliable. However, the woman remembers the incident, and (significantly) told her peers about it when it happened, told her therapist about it not long after that, and suffered sufficiently lasting emotional trauma that she later told her husband about a few times, most recently when this man appeared on a shortlist of nominees for the Supreme Court.

The man claims that none of it happened, and that all of it is a complete fabrication, and that they were never even at any party together, ever. He probably believes it, so he is not lying, as such, but it does raise questions about how cavalier one has to be about sexual assault in order to attempt to rape a girl and then completely forget about it.

Let's come at this from a different direction: What does the woman have to gain by coming forward? She can prevent this man from getting a promotion. What does she have to lose? Her life as she knew it has already been irrevocably altered. So if you believe that a successful professional would willingly perjure herself, sabotage her career, AND expose herself, her family, and her loved ones to a lifetime of unprecedented levels of vile hatred, harassment and ugliness from the reactionary supporters of this man just to prevent him from getting a promotion, then you must be the dumbest fucking person on planet earth.

The other issue here is the idea that the man should be held accountable for something he did 38 years ago. Does his attempt to rape a girl when he was a minor disqualify him from getting a promotion? Intent matters, and this man has never apologized, shown no remorse, taken zero ownership, and worked as hard as he can to deny, distract, and deflect. So too have his supporters. Only a rich white man, enabled and supported by other rich white men, could behave in this way and actually expect to get promoted.

Whether or not this man gets his promotion the most compelling thing we learned during the process is how the GOP treats women: terribly. You would think that alone would disqualify someone from the Supreme Court, but then you remember that it does not disqualify you from the office of the president of the United States, and it all makes perfect sense.

Not for nothing, but this guy also lied under oath, which, what the hell?

Please Stop Buying Bottled Water

Plastic Trash in the Pacific is a Bummer

I am wasting my time here but what else is this thing for but to complain to people that don't care about stuff they will not change?

Please stop buying bottled water by the truckload. Seriously, it's the worst. Almost all of the United States has ready access to fresh, clean, cheap drinking water. We have so much that people use drinking water to wash their cars and water their lawns and fill their swimming pools. Bottled water is too cheap, in that the cost it does to the environment is not reflected in the purchase price. This is true of a great many things: meat, corn, soybeans, and much else. But water, which is available almost for free from your own home, is still purchased in vast quantities by people that really should know better, and they bring it TO THEIR HOUSE TO DRINK. If you cannot handle regular tap water then give some real thought to the fact that you have been shamelessly brainwashed into an absurd fallacy and then buy a brita, or buy a portable water filter that people use for camping. Stop being an asshole and buying bottled water. Please.

There's all this fuss about straws now. Straws are only a tiny fraction of the problem. How can I drink boba without a straw? Do I have to bring my own? I guess I can do, if necessary. I'm happy to, if it means you will stop it with the bottled water nonsense. Or just keep doing what you're doing. Sea levels are going to rise and the economies are going to collapse anyway. : (

What the hell have you been up to?

It's been a long time.
Since we last visited some stuff has happened, but other stuff has not happened, and here we are. I still have not written about going to Copenhagen. Who goes on a multi-week, multi-city European journey and doesn't go on and on about it when they get back? I did!

Here's a photo from a famous location in Copenhagen. It was postcard-perfect weather the several days that I was there, and the biggest challenge in the very long days was working around the outrageously bright sunshine. And also not having a real camera, because carrying a real camera around is exhausting.

Copenhagen was great. Very bike friendly. I did not ride a bike there. The bike lanes are insanely crowded, and riding in town the bikes are much like cars, with traffic lights and stuff. It is intimidating. So we walked a lot. It was good. You should go.