/now/

/now/^[1] is a monthly updated page that lists some of the projects I'm working on, media I'm engaging, and hobbies or other activities I'm doing.

👩‍💻 Coding

• Project within the Advanced Hands on Rust book by Herbert Wolverson
• fix-music-tags - an mp3 tag fixer that uses Google Gemini API calls to impute missing meta data information.
• And more on my github

🏔️ Hiking & Mountaineering

• ✅ Little Marshel Falls
• ✅ Mailbox Peak

Misc. Projects

• Wrote post:
  • 2024 Toyota RAV4 Cost of Ownership Analysis - Forecast vs Actual
• Hosting an out-of-state friend
• Joined a boldering gym to train and get fit

Media

Books

• Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett (Book two of the Founders Trilogy)
• What you are looking for is in the library by Michiko Aoyama
• Advanced Hands-On Rust by Herbert Wolverson

• ⏸️ The Incredible Years
• ⏸️ Bulletproof Problem Solving

Music

• Massive Attack - Mezzanine
• Bush - Sixteen Stone

Movies

• V for Vendetta
• InnerSPACE
• The Matrix

Podcasts

• The DOS Gaming Club
  • Hugo's House of Horrors
  • Syndicate
• Opposing Bases
• Aviation News Talk w/ Max Trescott
• Improve Something today

🎮 Video Games

• Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erd Tree
• Stardew Valley (with kiddo and partner)
• Valheim (Peaceful mode with kiddo)

Some Articles I clipped last month:

Why I Stopped Arguing With People

When you argue with someone, you think you’re debating an idea. Often you’re not. You’re challenging their sense of self.

Many people are ego-driven. Their opinions aren’t positions they hold; they are the position. Prove the idea wrong and you haven’t corrected a fact, you’ve attacked a person. So they defend it the way anyone defends themselves: not with reason, but with resistance. The stronger your argument, the harder they dig in.

You can’t win an argument like this, because it was never an argument. It was a fight over whose ego stays intact. Even when you “win,” you lose, because now you have an enemy who is more convinced than before.

So I’ve drawn a line. I only discuss pros and cons with smart people; I don’t argue right and wrong with ego-driven ones. With the first kind, a disagreement is a joint search for the better answer, and both of us walk away sharper. With the second, there is no answer being sought, only a self to be defended.

Blogging Can Just Be Stating The Obvious

It’s funny how often blogging feels like being the little child in the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. You’re just stating what seems obvious to you.

I often look at my own posts and think, “There’s nothing novel, or important, or deep in here at all — is this even worth saying?”

A post’s point can seem so glaringly obvious to me (and thus, I presume, others) it feels like a waste of time to even say it. As John says:

A webpage should show the webpage. An email should show the email. I should not have to explain this.

But then real-world examples of annoyance pile up around you and nobody talks about it, so you finally just have to say it in a post and bring receipts.

You feel like someone gone mad: “Is anyone else seeing the same thing I’m seeing? And we’re just ok with this?”

Very often, those are the best posts I read from others.

Why Does Trump Want the Save America Act? The Answer Should Worry Us.

The Act has virtually no prospect of passing the Senate in its current form. If the President convinces the public that the Act is necessary, and Congress refuses to enact it, he can claim that the integrity of the next election is in doubt and that an executive remedy is justified.

By this interpretation, the President's campaign for the Act builds the predicate for unilateral action: the suspension or federally supervised disruption of the midterm elections, sufficient to secure continued Republican control of the House. This is not as speculative as we would hope. Federal troops and law enforcement agents have been deployed to Los Angeles, Washington, Portland, and Chicago under contested theories of executive authority. A draft executive order circulated among Trump allies would declare a national emergency to ban mail-in ballots and voting machines. And recently, the President issued a different executive order attempting to grant his Postal Service unprecedented federal control over who is eligible to vote by mail.

About — Bubbles.town

Somewhere out there, someone wrote a really good blog post today. You'll probably never find it. Google won't show it to you. Social media buried it under engagement bait.

Bubbles tries to surface it. Community voting applied to thousands of personal, independent blogs, with identity and discussion routed through the Fediverse.

We monitor thousands of independent, personal blogs via RSS. Every new post appears on Bubbles automatically. Nobody submits individual links.

The blogs were hand-picked from various curated sources and individually reviewed. More details on our inclusion criteria are in the FAQ. You can also check whether a blog is already listed.

You vote on the posts worth reading. The good stuff floats to the top. Everything else sinks over time.

There is no such thing as fked.

You don’t need to be fearless.

You don’t need to be brilliant.

You don’t need a flawless plan.

You need to stop declaring the game over while there are still moves on the board.

There is no such thing as f**ked.

There is only the position you’re in, the facts you have, the costs in front of you, and the next move.

FIRE 101 — Financial Independence Playbook

What is F.I.R.E?
Financial Independence means your investments continuously generate enough income to cover all your expenses — indefinitely.

You can safely withdraw ~4% each year to support your lifestyle, while your portfolio sustains itself and continues growing, making work optional.

Why pursue Financial Independence?

• Freedom and choice
• Work because you want to, not because you have to. Your job becomes a choice — not a requirement.
• Control over time: Time is your most finite asset. FI lets you reclaim it — for family, health, and what truly matters.
• Reduced stress
• Financial security indirectly improves mental and physical well-being.
• Pursue your passions
• Travel, volunteer, learn a new skill, start a business — without financial worry.
• You choose your WHY

How much do you need to be Financially Independent?
25 × Annual Expenses invested

Annual expenses include all costs needed to maintain your lifestyle — housing, food, utilities, insurance, taxes, travel, entertainment, hobbies, etc.

‘An equal and habitable world is possible’ academics set out sweeping vision for planetary survival

At its core is the concept of sufficiency – the idea that people can enjoy a prosperous, healthy life without constantly striving to consume or accumulate more material possessions that degrade the natural world on which all life depends.

To achieve this, the authors envisage three steps: more than halving average working time from 2,100 hours a year to 1,000 hours, roughly equivalent to a two-and-a-half-day working week; encouraging people to eat less red meat, which is the main driver of deforestation and ecological destruction; and refocusing the economy toward low-consumption activities by more than doubling education spending to €8,400 (£7,250) a person and healthcare spending to €14,400.