Weeknote #104 (20260920-20260926)

meta

I was supposed to be in the Bay Area this weekend, but an emergency situation in TheWife’s family led to her needing to go to Chicago right now, so off she went and home I stayed.

did

  • I’d already mostly cleared my decks in advance of my planned-now-canceled trip, and I mostly just left them cleared — which made for a nice week, I was able to mostly keep my head down and got a few things done
  • Handover to replacement manager continues apace
  • Finally got to the point with my long-running music cleanup project that I started metastatic as a new version of some metadata management software — more here once there is more, I reckon
  • TheWife returned Thursday evening — the emergency turned out to be a lot less pressing than initially feared (which was great news)
  • Friday after work, we were having a pint down the local, when the owner’s wife came in asking if anybody wanted a kitten she’d rescued in their neighborhood, and so now, as of Saturday afternoon, we have a cat again. (When the Cat Distribution System comes for you, it is best not to resist.) His name is still being iterated on…

read

  • “Everybody’s Lost Their Minds”

    AI is the tool that dulls its users; it incrementally replaces understanding with a new dependency and addiction as you actively de-skill yourself.

  • This is something I’ve been trying to work on in my personal speech, so I really appreciated “How to talk about ‘AI’ without adding to the anthropomorphization”

    De-anthropomorphizing language talks about computer systems in terms of their functionality (what people build and/or use them to do), assigns agency to people using systems and not systems, and avoids aggrandizing metaphors about cognition.

    We aim to find substitutes that are as self-explanatory as possible, so that you can just go ahead and use them without having to explain. (Though of course, if someone asks “Why are you calling it that?” that’s also a great opening.)

  • Finished Not Till We Are Lost, the most recent Bobiverse book — solid effort, cliff-hanger-y ending but you kinda expect you’re signing up for that at this point. Started a re-read of Swordheart ahead of tackling the new one in that series

  • unread bookmark count: 165

watched

cooked

  • Sunday: grilled spatchcocked chicken, caprese salad
  • Monday: grilled hot dogs, leftover caprese salad
  • Tuesday: grilled chicken tacos with green sauce
  • Wednesday: spaghetti with meat sauce

photo

New kitty got a bath and was not a fan

looking forward to

Gonna be in Austin for a few days next week, for a work training event — whee