my US map thing, if "stayed" means "lived there for months but knew exactly when I was leaving and had another place to go back to"

I look at friends who have escaped Silicon Valley and they're doing okay and seem to have actual real lives. Meanwhile I've been grinding it here for a decade after grad school and not only did I not make it big, I'm alone and miserable. Yeah, grass is greener and all, but whuff

First Monday of the year. Train pass worked today so that's one hassle solved. Spent a lot of last night ruminating. I might have the burnout in remission but maybe a midlife crisis starting up. Like why am I doing this job? What do I want to do? Just gonna try to survive the week for now.

The new Black Mirror episode was pretty weird

American Idiot is appropriate chores soundtrack this morning

when I say I'm nostalgic for the mid-2000s I mean, like, studded belts and having to call machine learning "multivariate methods" because it's out of fashion, not more fucking wars

I like sitting by my window and watching the rain fall illuminated by holiday lights this time of year. It's very cozy

nothing like January 2 in the office to make me remember I hate my job and that I just finished a month long process that was supposed to improve that starting today but so far has not

🎶 twin high maintenance machines 🎶

Well if my train pass not working is the worst thing that happens to me at work, I'll consider that good. I was fully expecting to get turned around at the door this morning and told I was laid off, after last year's stupidity.

so my big challenge for 2026 is figuring this whole life thing out

Highlights of 2025 for me. It was overall a pretty good year, if mostly a rebuilding year, for me (thread):

Finally made a little stand for my noble gas tubes. In order, helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon (no radon for obvious reasons) I think I can improve it but at least I can display them now!

mmm neon

the phases of vacation for me: 1. still in "work" mode, using the extra time to power through neglected chores 2. the crash with lots of junk food and messed up sleep 3. (if enough time) gradually recovering to a state of natural productivity and feeling good today has been mostly phase 3

mmm neon

In retrospect I quit MUCKs back at the start of 2020 and my attempts to return have failed because the medium is dying

by most measures a good day: I worked out, I practiced guitar, I've had many cups of the good coffee I got myself, I did some reading, and I've been working on a 3D printing project. But my family have managed to nail me with a javelin of misery hurled from across the continent, the assholes

oh to be a big fluffy dog walking through snowy drifts as more flakes float down, while colorful and cozy lights twinkle around us

turns out it was just PG&E

called in sick to work so I'm off until the end of the year

in retrospect, I learned a lot growing up by being dragged to relatives' places and being forced to read whatever above-my-grade-level magazines and books they had laying around in the era where I had a tape player and a gameboy and had to ration batteries for them

think he's gonna knot her or not? 🎨 SinalaNF (www.furaffinity.net/user/sinalanf/) (both characters are mine)

succumbed to Whamageddon with a poor choice of playlist while doing my chores 😞

Midwest Emo Friday www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF8z...

Some of these redactions are almost like modern art

There are a huge number of human activities which you will have to endure a period of being shit at when you start, and you get past it with a large volume of practice People will try to sell you stuff by making you believe this period of shit is you doing something wrong rather than natural

Going back in time to when cloud chasing was bigger to sell vapes named after Tolkien characters like "The Gandalf" would be a big knobby wood thing, "The Witch King" would be black and spiky, etc.

I'm so tired

drinking decaf out of the DS9 mug (with thermochromic wormhole and USS Defiant)

fuck me: "actually you are not getting anything in writing but trust us that you will still have a job on January 1" I've already got one onsite job interview lined up in the second week of January and I'm talking to some other companies so whatever

this field biologist does a great job highlighting the insidiousness of AI editing these one-click AI edit buttons are incredibly appealing to many photographers, amateurs and professionals alike, and are framed as innocuous this is worth sharing and educating people about

I have earned myself a nice relaxing sunday of coffee, haircut, workout, laundry, couch, weed, listening to the all-american rejects album, playing zelda a link to the past randomizer

try some akita balls right up close 🎨 @tritscrits.bsky.social

something like 80% of the "friends" I made in my first two decades in the fandom bad parents fuck you up because you think the shit they do is normal and so you let other people treat you like shit too

Is the 67 meme giving you problems? Just load up Python and ``` import ctypes py_obj = ctypes.cast(id(67), ctypes.POINTER(ctypes.c_long)) py_obj[3] = 0 # or pick your favorite number print(f"Now 67 is {67}, no more worries") ``` (don't do this in any real production code or I will frown at you)

relatable and I should get art like this of me

the tentative news is I will still be employed in 2026, but I'm not getting any sort of raise, and I still don't actually have anything in writing I'm not really excited or even relieved. This whole ordeal has been so stupid and pointless, and I'm still doing interviews at other places

it's remarkable how many nights this year practicing guitar has helped me avoid an evening of bad mood and rumination. Might be over 100

Wow, what an end to the F1 championship! I was rooting for Piastri, followed by not-Verstappen, but I was really worried about this season being a MGS2 to 2007's MGS1 toward the end there

I'm not too badly beat up from the conference. Brought a mild cold back despite masking most of the time. Didn't gain or lose weight really. Trying to decide if I can forgive myself for being a lump today, or if I'll feel better once I've worked out and played some guitar

San Diego is one of the better airports for walking to. There's a pedestrian path all the way there from downtown and not too many sketchy traffic crossings

chat is this model collapse? (from "Artificial Hivemind: The Open-Ended Homogeneity of Language Models (and Beyond)" openreview.net/forum?id=saD... )

I wonder what necessitated filling the hotel outlet USB ports with epoxy. They're all like this

building the torment nexus but for robots

I would like to eat an entire chicken for breakfast. I've been running off of sugar and caffeine since Tuesday

I survived my 10 minute talk. I don't think I did a great job, but one person asked a question so I didn't completely bomb it

I lost something 2019–2023 to burnout and I'm starting to feel like a functioning professional again. Giving talks and shit

why are all the vendor swag moleskine notebooks lined? worst format especially for technical stuff. Grid is acceptable but I prefer blank

yum, so much work trip bad coffee to drink. I can tell, for example, the free conference coffee is reconstituted Bustelo