Short Blurb

``Hey, we haven't heard from MT for a while, probably means he is doing well, right?''

Well... no. Sometimes, having a longish interval in between entries is not a sign of the good times---it just means that I either have nothing to write about, or that I don't feel like writing anything. Those are literally the direct causes. Everything else is just a possible indirect cause, though I think there really isn't a good reason to delve too much into those distinctions.

So yes, that's basically it. Either nothing to write about, or I just don't feel like writing anything. And for the latest interval, it's more of the latter.

Words feel so superfluous, so superficial. And considering that I am not really intending to write here to change the world, it seems even less important for me to bother writing things.

Anyway, let's just keep up with the shallowness of it all, the whole charade that things are daijoubu.

Past few weeks, I've been feeling rather drained---just didn't feel compelled to go out interacting with people. I didn't feel well enough to want to play on my dizi, and definitely didn't feel well enough to want to write here.

The only compelling reason I can think of is the large numbers of strangers that I needed to interact with at work during this phase. All that interaction just drains whatever energy I have left.

That and perhaps running multiple days of sub-six-hour sleep might be strong contributory factors.

Combined worship at church began last week, which I did not attend the service because of a prior appointment. Which means that tomorrow will be the first time that I will face the whole congregation at once.

With my drained energy state, I have no idea what will happen.

Randomly though, the past has been coming back to me here and there. Really, it's hard to just ``get over it''; the best we can do is just to reframe things so that new meaning can be attributed to them over the original interpretation. It didn't help that the second International Low Flutes Festival happened over last weekend (I didn't attend, even though it was online).

For those who didn't know, I was supposed to attend a similar event a couple of years ago, just as COVID-19 was starting up. That was also around the same period when my original life trajectory went south (I may have remembered this wrong, but I'm not going to try and find the truth). So to say that there's a sour-ish taste in my mouth about this is... probably much closer to the truth than I am willing to admit.

Well, that's about all I want to write here for now. Life's still progressing one day at a time. Most days are alright, albeit zombie-ish, while some days I just drag myself through pure determination and trust in the Lord.

Till the next update.

6 Tomes in ~5 Years---Thanks For All The Joy and Wonder, SCP Foundation

Staring at the ``Thematic Projects'' section of my reading list should reveal a big omission: the entire series of the SCP Foundation is no longer present.

Well, I've completed the series, and hence it is no longer there.

Just for records purposes, I got them from this location in the SCP Foundation website, specifically under ``Foundation Tomes''. The date of the dump was in 2017-02-01 (in ePub), which I converted into the Kindle-friendly Mobi format on 2017-02-20 (incidentally, the best Mobi format reader on the PC isn't SumatraPDF nor FBReader---it is unironically the Kindle program for PC). The astute will realise that there are twelve tomes in total, while my last read tome in the last read list is only Tome 6.

The absolutely anally retentive will observe that SCPs have gone all the way into the 6000--6999 range now, while Tome 6 stopped at SCP2999.

So what in the blazes do I mean?

It means...

1. I have indeed read 6 of the 12 tomes and have called it a day.
2. The 6 tomes covered till SCP2999.
3. I am wholly satisfied with the fun I derived from reading these 6 tomes of nearly 3000 SCP articles.

The remaining 6 tomes from the original dump were more of fan-fiction based on/around the implied world where the SCPs exist in---they lack the kind of faux seriousness the way the SCP article is structured (for the confused, an SCP article shares similar structure to other technical documents like MSDS or Material Safety Data Sheet). That official-looking structure encourages concise writing, with specific characteristics elucidated as clearly as a technical report would, but without sacrificing the kind of science-fiction creativity that is needed.

The fan-fiction stuff were more prose-y, and the quality is all over the place. I didn't read SCP articles for the story, I read them for the kind of Lovecraftian ethos of trying to secure, contain, and protect these barely understandable Eldritch objects, delivered in as pithy a way as possible.

And after 3000+ of them, it's enough. There is definitely a gradual decline in the quality after a while, and this is talking about what's within these 3000+ articles. It's kinda what happens to most world-building situations---the initial works are always the most interesting for the novelty, but as time goes on, each new work is always trying to make itself stand out just a bit more than being mediocre, but they can barely succeed just due to how cramped the space is for exploration after the initial burst of creative energy.

SCP articles are a guilty pleasure, and I loved them when they weren't blown up into this massive 7000+ articles thing. And so I keep them at where I love them the most, and gently put away the rest.

The SCP Foundation, what it stood/stands for, and the strange, scary, and sometimes horrifying objects that they try to secure, contain, and protect, will always be there. Perhaps in the future, when the itch strikes again, when what is old becomes anew, I might just see if I can stand to read the next 3000+ SCP articles.

But for now, this thematic project is done.

Till the next update.

``Extra Cool'' is Actually Quite Cool!

Weekend. Last vestiges of.

Sometimes I wonder why I still keep a blog when only a small handful of people are even actively reading it. But then again, I just remind myself that my writing of this and other blogs is less for others but more for myself---a way of purging whatever is bugging me in the head that might be of some interest to some of my friends. This is, of course, opposed to the other form of purging where I dump stuff straight into my paper journal.

Anyway, let's talk a little about what happened over this weekend.

I felt really out of it yesterday. The weather was definitely one major reason, but it was hardly the only one. I was out of sleep, and probably didn't caffeinate myself enough. That ended up with me just crashing out for a long afternoon nap of a couple of hours. I went for the evening's rehearsal, and tapped out at the end of it to head back home instead of joining the crew for a post-rehearsal drink and chill.

I still felt at little out of it this morning, which ended with me waking up about a couple of hours after what I was intending to. But I drank the equivalent of 2 mugs of coffee just before working on this upcoming Bible study, and was feeling generally fine, though still not as gregarious as I should be. I hitched a ride for church service, but headed out on my own after that instead of joining for lunch.

I think that's going to be the new thing, not joining for lunch. For one, I really shouldn't be doing lunch as a rule of thumb, and I ought to keep to it. For two, my hitching a ride back home feels like I'm imposing myself upon what is obviously time for my church friends to run their errands and do other things that they would find it hard to do within the rest of the week.

It's nearly 2200hrs now, and after I post this, I'm probably going to crash out for the night.

------

I dug up more terracotta out in the mesa biome (or Badlands as they call it these days) in Minecraft. I set up a rudimentary conveyor belt system based on hoppers to allow me to quickly offload my inventory when it was full to send it to the shulker boxes automatically, reducing the amount of walking that I needed to do to and fro to get it done manually. I also dug out more materials from the mining floor for no reason other than to relax.

I also managed to unlock Toastie in Vampire Survivors, which I still maintain is one of the best bang for buck for the amount of fun obtained with about SGD4.

Games aside, I've also discovered that Rohto had come up with a more potent version of their Cool Eyedrops---the Rohto Extra Cool Eyedrops (emphasis mine). On their provided ``Cooling Level'' scale, the Cool is at 5 (out of 8), while the Extra Cool is at 7 (out of 8). I'll skip the coyness and just say that I could hardly feel the Cool eyedrops when I was using them---not sure if it was related to having gotten LASIK, or if it was just my general tolerance to the effect of menthol on the cold-sensitive receptors, even as regular people were feeling the cool ``burn'' when they tried it.

Extra Cool---yeah I felt it. It was a nice ``cold burn'', much less intense as compared to having Axe Brand Universal Oil accidentally ending up on the sclera (that sucker was pain---it felt good after the pain levels drop, but it does leave the sclera rather bloodshot), and sufficiently intense to overcome whatever it was that made me not feel the Cool as much.

I'm liking it already.

But I want to point out that even the Extra Cool ranks ``only'' a 7 (out of 8). It made me wonder just what it was that counted as a full 8 (out of 8) in the ``Cooling Level'' scale. Rohto seems to have different marketing arms across their different markets, so trying to figure out which existing product might be cross promoted as the unseen 8 (out of 8) was pretty much in speculative territory with no reprieve.

But I don't think that I need to get that 8 (out of 8) cooling eye drops when this one works well enough.

Anyway, I'm beat. Going to turn in for the night now. Till the next update then.

Heckin' Long Hack Day

Today was a long day. It is the longest uninterrupted day of work that I had done in a while---no naps either on the trip to the office, nor in the middle of the day during the lunch break, nor any time after. Straight up being awake since 0500hrs to what I think should be 2330hrs before I crash out from exhaustion.

But let's back track a little.

Hack Day is one day in the work week that I deliberately set aside to have uninterrupted blocks of time to work on things that require time to think. Back in my I²R days, it evolved from having to deliver software artefacts while being involved in various meetings with various parties. For me, meetings are disruptive to my thinking process for two big reasons:

1. As working level staff, I need to prepare for the meetings, and the said preparation work is non-trivial. It's more than just clobbering some slides together---it is also about getting the framing correct, and simplifying enough of the material so that the other attendees of the meeting (not all of them at the same technical level as what I am working on) can actually understand enough of what is going on to give useful feedback. This is one of the reasons why I absolutely detest meetings with no agenda, because it will be a colossal waste of everyone's time. By extension, I have unbridled righteous anger at those who enjoy calling such agenda-less meetings, and beginning said meeting with ``Do you know why I've called you all here?''.
2. As a person who dislikes having to deal with people as a matter of principle, I personally need to summon energy reserves to ``put on my game face'' to attend meetings---the more external parties there are, the more energy I need to summon from my reserves. Since I'm no ``big boss'' calibre person, it means that such meetings often require me to actively participate to understand enough of what is going on to provide timely and accurate technical input/feedback to my bosses so that they can make the best decision---that also drawns upon that energy reserve. Meetings with my team are less draining due to the more candid nature we have to adopt to get things moving as fast and misunderstanding-free as it is practically possible, but they still require some energy expenditure.

For a deeper explanation that is more general than what I have said here, I highly recommend Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule by Paul Graham.

Hack Day used to be on Tuesdays back in I²R; they were made obsolete with the deathmarch-esque grind at my next place of work. Now I have instituted them again because of the nature of the work, but it is on Wednesdays instead.

Hack Days usually mean that I come earlier to the office, and leave later so as to maximise the number of large enough blocks of time (about 3 hours per block). The keyword here is ``usually''---the time of arrival/departure to/from the office is less important than the number of big blocks of time that I can have. As noted in this brief description of my typical day, the standard bus-only route that has maximal comfort cannot provide that early arrival time. I²R Hack Days were usually executed through driving the family car, which allowed me to arrive at the office at around 0630hrs, and leave at 2000hrs.

I'm cutting back on the driving these days just so that I can acclimatise myself to a lifestyle where there is no access to a car (or taxi for that matter). It's a choice thing because sooner or later, the family car isn't going to be around. I see no reason to feed a beast that I use at most once a week, and eventually even my father would be too old to actually make use of the car more often than he currently has, making it even harder to justify continuously feeding the beast.

So... no car. I had to come in earlier today because I needed those large time blocks, not to mention that there was some production issue that I needed to quickly look into. That issue was minor, but it still needed some labour to rectify after all.

To come in earlier though means forgoing the use of the bus-only route. Because the two-hour travel time meant that I needed to be on the bus at around 0540hrs, which meant leaving the apartment by 0530hrs, which (working backwards some more) meant that I needed to wake up earlier to ensure that I still got my morning exercise, shower, and coffee going.

I'm already running on dangerously low levels of sleep. Getting up even earlier is a no-go.

Thus, it would be by subway. And if by subway, it means no nap for two reasons:

1. No guaranteed seating in subway;
2. Travel duration per leg is too close to the 20-minute mark that my naps on public transport tend to take, making it very risky.

That explains the no nap this morning.

As for no nap during lunch break, well that's much easier to explain. I needed sunlight, and getting sunlight meant no nap either, since there is no comfortable way to actually nap. It's not like there were chairs to snooze in, and I didn't bring along those straw mats to allow myself to lie completely flat on the floor.

Thus, a long day.

I wanted to write something about the vastness of space and how it is a good thing because it protects us from being annihilated by monstrous levels of energies that are out there, energies that are far beyond what our science/engineering can manipulate to create ``perfect'' localised conditions such that we have leverage on to effect our will, but it got all complicated.

So all you're going to get is just that small paragraph above.

And that is that. Till the next update.