Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

What do you want to tolerate?

I am tangentially aware of the big hoopla regarding Flock cameras. Surveillance cameras that capture vehicle data to track down crime-doers are either being used nefariously, or outputting false positives leading to false arrests. As with any technology or specific tool, there’s opportunities for downsides and negative consequences. Is it the guns, or the shooters firing at innocent people?

(It’s the guns.)

As with anything, there are no solutions, only trade offs. These days, what are the first thing people ask for when something bad happens to them? Where are the cameras, and did they capture the bad thing? Should you get into a car accident, no doubt your insurance will seek and subpoena camera footage, perhaps from the very Flock cameras that have been so controversial.

If the negative consequences of implementing such surveillance powers is too intolerable for Americans, then the general public will also have to accept that there’s going to less video assistance when the bad stuff happens. Entire neighborhoods might be less safe because cars can act a fool with impunity. Can we tolerate the negative consequences of non implementation?

From a culture that brings their smartphones - and the cameras - with them into the bathroom, caring about privacy whilst out on public streets seem a bit dubious. Even if Flock cameras weren’t a thing, we are absolutely surrounded by capture devices. Soon as you leave the house, you might notice that every house on the residential block has outward-facing records. You get into your car, and dashcams are as popular as ever. Thanks to videos of blatant insurance fraud like this.

We are getting caught in 4K in public all the time.

Now obviously the argument here is that we would rather a scattershot of disparate camera operators, than one monolithic system accessible by the notoriously trustworthy government. And on that I have to concede the point. Perhaps this sort of crowd-sourced surveillance is a solid compromise that already exists.

Take a walk

No matter how cushy your job is, there’s going to be moments of frustration and stress. Lucky for me, I have the balm for it right outside the office. Shoutout to the campus green team for keeping the lawns and trees thriving. A quick stroll in nature is such a good way to decrease the rising blood pressure.

Breathe in deeply the wonderful smells given off by the plants. Refocus the eyes to something a bit more distant, after many hours of staring at a screen a foot away. And on a chance day when the western side of San Francisco gets some sun, feel some of that important vitamin D softly permeate into the skin.

The stressful situation will still be there when I return to the desk, but for that brief period of time, I am in a lovely zone of bliss. Best of all, it is completely free.

Erase time, or speed up time

This video of Jenson Button driving his championship-winning Formula One car on the Goodwood circuit is utterly fantastic. For many fans - myself included - this is the era of F1 we remember most fondly. The naturally-aspirated engines that revved to the moon. The hair-raising, high-pitched wail of a scream that is still the gold-standard of engine sounds. The sort of fizzy feeling that is utterly absent in today’s turbocharged hybrid formula.

Sad as it may be to say, Formula One is never going back to that era. Things have moved on, technologies have gone in a different direction.

Which is why it’s important to be in the present and to fully appreciate what’s right in front of us. Because in a few years things can change rapidly, and you’re left wondering why the “good ole days” seem to have passed us by so quickly. I wished I had paid more attention to Formula One before this current decade-plus turbocharged era. I would have savored the screaming engines that much more. The sheer beauty that was displayed on the television screen.

It’s mechanistically perverse that we really don’t know we are in the ‘‘good times” until it has passed and we are looking backwards. It would be nice to get some signal that right now is a golden era that we should probably pay full attention to. But then again, we do love to live in the future tense. We can’t even enjoy a concert of our favorite artist without recording the proceedings for posterity. For the future us.

A good way to practice being in the present moments is to go to the movies. You are stuck there for the two hours completely engrossed in what is displayed on the giant screen in front. No phones, no distractions. We’ve all experience that feeling, right? That moment when we come out of the theatre and time seems to return to normal ticking. As if inside the theatre was a dream world. It’s a strange feeling because when we are fully in the present moment, the flow of time feels different.

But it’s only strange because our regular lives are so consumed by ruing that past or anxious about the future. We either want to erase time, or speed up time. That’s not a great way to live, especially when the human lifespan has a finite hard stop.

Maybe the reason we’re so addicted to nostalgia is because it gives us a chance for a do-over at being present for the thing to be nostalgic about. Right then, I’ll go watch more old Formula One clips on YouTube.

In real life

On my weekly runs around the local lake, it is very gratifying and inspiring to see people of all shapes and sizes (and ages) getting their steps in. It doesn't matter if those steps are rapid or leisurely; what really matters is that they are moving. Kudos to all of them, because I personally know how difficult it can be to keep consistency.

Seeing other exercisers getting after it also motivates me to keep to my schedule. There are no days off! Unless of course there’s an injury, then by all means, please take a day off. An underappreciated aspect of going to commercial gyms - versus working out at home - is the community. Even if you don’t speak to a single soul during the time there, the innate understanding that everyone there is working towards the same thing is very powerful. You don’t dare skip a rep, because others around are aware.

Of course the primary reason I work out at home is the time savings. There’s no waiting for equipment to open up, and it’s practically available at all waking hours. But that’s the thing about being social and out in the community: it takes time and effort. We have to shed some of our selfishness in order to be part of groups. It’s easy to romanticize the lone-wolf individualism in this country, but perhaps it’s prudent to trade away some convenience to get some of the social benefits.

We are tribal animals, after all. Thoreau at Walden Pond can only ever be a phase. If there is this supposed loneliness epidemic going on, the solution is obvious: go outside, meet people in real life. Social media is great only if it leads to gatherings in person. There’s no substitute for live pixels right in front of our eyes, rather than pixels on a screen.

Even just being around people - no chatting, like me running at the lake, is enough of a positive boost!

Motor oil madness

I drove by a gas station last evening and saw that a gallon of premium 91 octane was over the $7 mark. A gallon of diesel was nearly $9! That is quite high, even for California. No wonder my coworker has stopped driving to work and instead is taking public transit. That extra half hour of commute time is worth the trade-off at the gas pump.

Meanwhile, my 10 minute walk of a commute remains unchanged.

Nevertheless, petroleum isn’t just purely at gas stations. It permeates and affects many things we buy and consume. The ongoing war with Iran is putting a self-inflicted squeeze on the petrol supply chain, and we haven’t yet seen the full brunt of it. Gas prices finally cresting $7 per gallon here in California might be the proverbial canary.

Word on the street is motor oil is suffering through a shortage, and consequently pricers are increasing. I’ve got two cars, both of which are gas burners. Every calendar year, they will need a flush and replenishment of oil. Much like the great toilet paper stock-up of early 2020 pandemic, the supposed smart wisdom amongst the car enthusiasts discussion is to stock up on engine oil before the prices inflate any higher.

Sadly for me, I don’t have the space to store copious amounts of oil containers. The inflation hammer will just have to hit me whenever it may fall. My Golf GTI is due for an oil change next month, so I bought six liters of the good German stuff at a little over $13 per liter. According to what I can find, that price has remained stable from the start of the year. In before the lock? Seems like it.

My Miata isn’t due for a change until next July. Out of curiosity, I checked the pricing for five quarts of Castrol on Amazon. A jug is $32, which honestly seems reasonable given the surround news. According to records, the last time I bought the same oil back in 2018, it was $31! That is super surprising. Either Castrol has done the consumer a favor and kept the pricing friendly throughout, or the company has cut corners to the same product. Shrinkflation is a heck of a drug.

It seems, at least for the two particular cars that I own, the great motor oil inflation has yet to reach the shore. Of course I am fully expecting things to change sooner or later, given the lack of end in sight for the Iran war. I’ll simply enjoy the mulligan that I’ve got this time round. Happy motoring!

Man maths

I was perfectly content with my iPhone 16 Pro Max… until I saw reviews of the new iPhone 18 Pro series. New to the latest iPhone are updates to the photographic styles - essentially fancy filters for photos taken with the phone. I’ve been a fan of photographic styles since this very iPhone 16 Pro Max was launched with the ability to customize the default tone mapping. I can (finally) toggle the color and dial back the crunchiness that iPhone photos have sort of become notorious for.

New to the iPhone 18 Pro line is more tone options, one of which is film. Right along with the prevailing photography zeigeist, I adore the look of film. My primary shooter is a Fujifilm XT-5. Nostalgia Neg is my preferred film simulation, and I am fully happy with the JPEG files that are straight out of the camera. These days, Adobe Lightroom for me is more of a collation app than heavy editing.

I always thought it would be nice for the iPhone to have such a film simulation out of the box using the native camera app. I didn’t think it would happen, but by god Apple did it! I wasn’t at all planning to spend $1,200 for a new phone this year, yet the mighty corporation from Cupertino has done it again.

This is where a bit of girl man maths comes in. Firstly, thanks to the chronic memory chip shortage caused by the AI boom, both models of the iPhone 18 Pro series has increased in price by $100. I skirted that extra cost by downsizing from the Max model of my iPhone 16 Pro to the regular sized iPhone 18 Pro. Same price as the old phone, just smaller screen real estate. A necessary sacrifice.

Secondly, my existing iPhone 16 Pro Max is fully functional and unblemished, so a perfect trade-in candidate. That knocks the price down by $610. Third, I opted out of buying AppleCare for the new phone, which I bought and carried on the old one. As someone who takes care of his stuff really well, the extra insurance is a needless financial outlay. So, save some additional money there.

Lastly, for the first time in my iPhone owning life, I bought a third-party case. $50 (plus tax) for Apple’s first-party case is ludicrously expensive, given there are so many Chinese-made options on Amazon that are just as nice, for about $15. Even if the third-party case doesn’t last as long, there’s enough money difference to buy two more before equaling the price of one Apple case.

That’s how I do man maths: make a big purchase, then find small ways to alleviate the total expenditure.

We're all going to feel it

This morning I woke up from a dream that I'd bought a Mercedes G Wagon, the preferred wealthy housewife car of choice. I knew it was a dream even when I was in the dream because there’s no way I would drop six-figures on a singular automobile. Did that once, enjoyed it, not YOLO-ing like that again. To comfortably afford a car priced in the six-figures, you really should be earning well past the quarter-million mark. Unfortunately, my salary is closer to zero than it is closer to $250,000.

I am happy and grateful for what I already have: the perfect two car solution. A MK7 Volkswagen Golf GTI for the utility factor, and a Mazda MX-5 Miata for pure driving fun. Both combined cost less than what I paid for a brand new BMW M2 back in 2019, which is saying something given the abject inflation that’s gone on since then. Is this German and Japanese duo the ones to ride into the proverbial sunset? Difficult to predict, the future is (Yoda). I’m just really satisfied right now.

And thank god neither of my cars run on diesel. Thanks to the ongoing war with Iran that was supposedly going to end quickly, the oil shock stemming from the Strait of Hormuz closure is finally materializing fully. Here in California, it’s over $8 for a gallon of diesel! Even if you don’t have a personal diesel vehicle (thanks, Volkswagen diesel-gate), the repercussions of such high pump pricing will directly affect your wallet. Commercial transportation is hugely reliant on diesel. Cost of goods sold will continue to trend higher because the cost of shipping is increasing.

Never mind that petroleum is an ingredient in so many products that you wouldn’t think of. As if the AI build-out inflation isn’t already bad enough…

So you EV owners can’t sit there too smugly about your cars not using gas. Though they can be slightly smug at the news of Costco rationing the sale of motor oil and raising prices due to shortages. (The upcoming annual oil change on the GTI is going to cost nearly $100 in materials alone!) But, the downstream negatives of the oil shock will affect us all. This collective hurt is quite the revenge on the individualistic streak so prevalent in American culture.

Klarna pay-in-four at the gas pump, when?