Weeknote #45 (20250727-20250802)

meta

Countdown to Mx18 departing continues. Local man’s lack of acceptance of this fact also continues. Watch this space for updates.

did

  • We had planned to do the community dinner at Epilogue on Sunday, but I coincidentally found out at the last minute that reservations were highly encouraged and we probably wouldn’t be seated if we just showed up — so next week it is!
  • This week also brought the news that Epilogue was going to be halting regular service at the end of August. Obviously, I’m very sad about this, but I’m also pleased that a friend (the owner/chef, to be clear) is prioritizing his own happiness and mental/physical health. Hoping the krewe there is able to land on their feet and I stay in touch with them, because I really enjoy everybody that works there
  • At work, I landed a PR to convert another section of our website to Next.js’s App Router — gonna keep grinding on this in the week to come
  • Speaking of Epilogue, TheWife and I visited Bryn Mawr Friday evening for cheesesteaks and wine, and it was (as always!) amnazing
  • Speaking of Mx18 leaving: I bought the plane ticket to take me out to NYC, and the ones to bring me and MrsGenehack back once Mx18 is moved in. Shit is currently sitting at about 85% real; realness will continue to intensify until, approximately, September
  • Completely relatedly, the whole famdamily took a drive over to the coast on Saturday, so that Mx18 could get one last look at the Pacific before leaving. We also had a great late lunch/early dinner at Local Ocean, which I completely and unreservedly recommend visiting should you ever be in Newport

exercise & shoulder recovery

  • Sunday: nothing
  • Monday: stretches, skipped run because heat
  • Tuesday: morning run, stretches, afternoon gym
  • Wednesday: stretches, rest day
  • Thursday: stretches, afternoon gym
  • Friday: morning run then stretches
  • Saturday: stretches in the morning

read

  • Goodbye to software engineering — interesting:

    I was laid off from Brex in January 2024. I spent five months looking for a job. It was a miserable search partly (mostly?) because of ageism. I consider myself blessed that I didn’t encounter it until I was in my 60’s; many less fortune souls hit it in their 40’s or 50’s.

    Inane job interviews, being of “retirement age,” and flexibility on what “retirement” could mean led me to reflect on whether a career change might make me happier. And so I investigated alternative careers. One thing led to another and I landed on watchmaking.

  • The Hater’s Guide To The AI Bubble

    I may not be a contrarian, but I am a hater. I hate the waste, the loss, the destruction, the theft, the damage to our planet and the sheer excitement that some executives and writers have that workers may be replaced by AI — and the bald-faced fucking lie that it’s happening, and that generative AI is capable of doing so.

    And so I present to you — the Hater’s Guide to the AI bubble, a comprehensive rundown of arguments I have against the current AI boom’s existence. Send it to your friends, your loved ones, or print it out and eat it.

    …

    We are in a bubble. Generative AI does not do the things that it’s being sold as doing, and the things it can actually do aren’t the kind of things that create business returns, automate labor, or really do much more than one extension of a cloud software platform. The money isn’t there, the users aren’t there, every company seems to lose money and some companies lose so much money that it’s impossible to tell how they’ll survive.

watched

  • continued into season 2 of Criminal Minds
  • this video for Bleacher’s “Don’t Take The Money” is just completely around the bend in a utterly amazing way. Come for Jack Antonoff in a tropical dictator shortsuit; stay for the USSR-coded butch lesbian showing up to rescue her true love from a sham marriage
  • a hill I will die on is that if you’re Travis Barker, shit like this video for Paradox, a new pop-punk band of Black Atlantans, is exactly what you should be doing with your time

cooked

  • grilled hamburgers, on Monday
  • grilled pork chops and corn, on Tuesday
  • grilled steak tacos, on Wednesday
  • grilled spatchcocked chicken and caprese salad, on Thursday