Weeknote #24 (20250302-20250308)

meta

The ongoing low-grade enshittification operation being run on the US government via insider threats continues to wear on me.

did

  • We re-activated our Costco membership, officially kicking off Operation Get Off Prime (we actually did this last week but I forgot)
  • At work, I’m continuing to grind on our website’s conversion to the Next.js App Router
  • Talked to the orthpod on Thursday: going ahead with the surgical option to repair my damaged rotator cuff (and associated injuries). Scheduling will happen in a couple weeks; actual surgery is probably 2 or 3 months out. Recovery looks like 4 weeks in a sling followed by 3 to 4 months of progressive PT before I get full functionality back. I wish it was going to happen more quickly, but for the moment it feels good to have some clarity about direction
  • The sleep disruptions due to my bum shoulder are starting to catch up to me a little bit — I can tell the lack of deep sleep is affecting my ability to think and work. I tried sleeping in the recliner Wednesday night, to see if that would be better, but it just mostly just differently bad, sadly Took the day off on Friday, and went to Salem’s Stand Up For Science rally — nice to see a lot of folks out representing and supporting science!
  • Tried to attend the Womens’ March on Saturday but we were running late and only caught the very tail end of a small group

exercise & shoulder recovery

  • Monday: lifted (shoulder stuff and deadlifts, back up to 225# for sets 💪)
  • Tuesday: did nothing. (boo.)
  • Wednesday: lifted (shoulder stuff, bicep curls, bulgarian split squats)
  • Thursday: shoulder stretches in the morning; 1.8 mile walk in the afternoon
  • Friday: shoulder stretches in the morning, then counted all the walking around the protest in the afternoon as my “workout” for the day (i.e., I played hookie…)
  • Saturday: shoulder stretches …maybe not first thing in the morning, but they got done

read

For whatever reason, I’ve been motivated to actually do my “read five things out of your backlog” daily task this past week, so …have a good set of links this time around:

  • What’s New in Emacs 30.1?

    What is new in Emacs 30.1? I go through every change in the NEWS file and talk about the most interesting and useful changes.

  • What sparked the COVID pandemic? Mounting evidence points to raccoon dogs

    The origin of the pandemic is still deeply politicized, and the lack of clear answers hasn’t helped. The virus probably originated in bats living in southern China. From there, many scientists think it infected an intermediate animal that passed it to people. The virus could also have passed directly from bats, although that is considered less likely given their habitat is far from Wuhan.

  • My Washing Machine Refreshed My Thinking on Software Effort Estimation

    Yes, we can (and must) gather requirements as best we can, but at some point we’ll end up on the ground and battling dozens of blockers we didn’t expect to hit, even when we thought the territory looked very familiar and a 10 minute job turns into 4 hours.

  • Why you need a “WTF Notebook”

    There’s always stuff that makes me go “wtf” on a new team. The team talks for an hour in retro about a serious problem, and then leaves without making any action items. The tests don’t run locally and no one seems to notice. Big chunks of the build board are always red. Only one person can do some critical, time-sensitive thing. The team is spending a bunch of time on some feature, but when I ask around no one can seems to know why it’s important or how it’ll help a customer.

  • Replacing tmux and GNU screen with Emacs

    Of course Emacs has a client-server architecture. It’s a text editor!

  • Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)

    If you read any one thing I link this week, read this one.

    When the very institutions that made American innovation possible are being systematically dismantled, it’s not a “political” story anymore. It’s a story about whether the environment that enabled all the other stories we cover will continue to exist.

    …

    It’s difficult to explain how much it matters that we’ve seen this movie before. (Well, technically, we’ve seen the beta version — what’s happening now is way more troubling.) When you’ve spent years watching how some tech bros break the rules in pursuit of personal and economic power at the expense of safety and user protections, all while wrapping themselves in the flag of “innovation,” you get pretty good at spotting the pattern.

    …

    If you do not recognize that mass destruction of fundamental concepts of democracy and the US Constitution happening right now, you are either willfully ignorant or just plain stupid. I can’t put it any clearer than that.

listened

watched

  • More NCIS: New Orleans with TheWife, finished S3 and started S4

cooked

  • Monday: wangs and corn
  • Tuesday: cronchy tacos
  • Wednesday: brined and reverse-seared pork chops with asparagus
  • Thursday: tuna fish sammies
  • Saturday: Thai basil chicken

looking forward to

Surgery, I guess? (JFC I’m old.)