Blog

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

Path of least insanity

San Francisco is experiencing its typical Summer weather, right as we are heading into the beginning of autumn. It’s been warm and humid for the past two weeks, and the next two weeks look to be much of the same. So far, so tropical. (Our family immigrated from southeast China to move away from this sort of weather!)

I now greatly regret weightlifting and getting buff because in this muggy weather, there’s too much chafing going on. The inner thighs rubbing on each other. The latissimus dorsi interacting constantly with the triceps. (Very not humble bragging.) The perfect body shape for this weather is an emaciated 130 pounds soaking wet.

BART - our area’s subway system - having a complete system shutdown last Friday morning is a fond reminder how fortunate I am to not have a commute. It remains a superpower to live within a 10 minute walk to work. That is, until they need someone in an emergency. My proximity at that time is not an advantage if I want to skip out of assisting.

To be at the whims of public transportation operating normally - can’t be me! This isn’t Japan where trains and buses are frequent and always on time. And if any one is ever late by one second, the driver has to commute seppuku as penance (very much joking, if you cannot tell.) Here in America, schedules are merely suggestions. There’s no telling when the next train will come, should you just missed one.

No wonder people will chose commuting by personal vehicle if the option exists. Even if you were stuck in traffic, at least you are in the private airspace of your own car. No bad smells, no rowdy passengers. It’s the path of least insanity.

Must protect number one

I’ve noticed amongst people I know from out of town that when they visit San Francisco, they are eager to take a Waymo autonomous taxis. It’s almost a tourist attraction in it of itself. That is, until it proliferates into other cities and regions. I myself have yet to hail a Waymo ride, just like I’ve yet to take a ferry to visit Alcatraz island.

As a person of introverted proclivity, I am on paper a big fan of autonomous taxis. To not have another stranger (the driver) there at all - never mind interacting with them - is serene music to my ears. But as with everything in life, there are tradeoffs.

Robots may be predictable, but humans are definitely not. On public roads there are multitudes of negative potentialities you must account for. And I don’t see how a driver-less taxi is capable of handling those situations. For example: what if a gang of dudes walks over to your stopped Waymo in a menacing fashion? If I were driving, the law gives me protection to mash the gas and get the hell out of there by harmful means.

Would a robot do the same? Has Waymo put into code calculations of when it is appropriate to run people over? There’s got to be a hierarchy of which life is more valuable, right? Perhaps the person paying for the autonomous ride should be supreme. If the outside world is threatening the occupant(s) inside a Waymo car, stopping and locking the doors cannot be the only option!

You can bet that I too would run over a gang of bikers in my Range Rover, if so provoked. Would an autonomous car do the same? I would like to know the answer before getting into one.

No rush, no hurries

Sometimes I forget how decent the public transportation is in San Francisco. It obviously pales in comparison to the ones in Asian countries, but constantly comparing will only make you depressed. Instead of lamenting the intervals between buses is too large, and being on-time is merely a suggestion: it can be worse! At least we are not Los Angeles.

A few weeks back I attended an event at Golden Gate Park. Anybody sound of mind knows to avoid driving there on a weekend, especially when the weather is nice. Rather than hailing an increasingly popular Waymo driverless taxi, I decided to take the bus. The local 28 took me right to the edge of Golden Gate Park, and then I walked inward to the final destination. Easy.

The festivities continued into the evening at a spot downtown. No problem! We were a few blocks way from the N metro train, which can conveniently take us downtown right to the door steps of the venue. Later that night, I took the M metro train back home. No car, no parking, no gas, and worries. It was rather convenient and wonderful.

I can of course understand why we avoid public transportation. A car will almost always get there faster. If parking is a pain, we rather hail a ride-share than suffer through a bus. Think of the time savings, right? That’s the thing: when we travel to other countries, we have no problems slogging through the local public transportation network to visit a sightseeing destination. It takes however long it will take.

Why don’t we keep some of that spirit here? Especially in a city like San Francisco (or New York City) where bus and train service is reasonably extensive. Especially when going to places on weekends; you should not be in any hurry!

Get back to work

San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie has ordered city workers to return-to-office for four days per week. (Why not the full five?) The rationale is that more face-to-face interaction will increase productivity (not advocating, just writing what is stated in the article). More days in-office will boost spending in the downtown core.

This thread in the San Francisco subreddit is breathing in a huge amount of cope. Lots of advocation for the positives of working from home. Lots of admonition for the impending congestion and traffic increase. This one post hilariously says they are being forced to buy $20 lunches downtown when reporting for work in person. Who the French can afford to eat-out for lunch every single workday (non lawyer and tech-bro edition)? Pack your own lunch from home like an adult.

Anyways, this return-to-office order isn’t a referendum on the merits of working from home. (The are positives and negatives.) It’s a referendum on optics. San Francisco can’t plead with the private sector to refill the suffering downtown core - to boost the surrounding economy - when its own workers aren’t being asked to do the same. Employees paid for by the taxpayers should be first in line in helping whatever revitalization plan the city has.

There’s jealousy involved, too. Those who cannot work-from-home are envious of those who can. The problem that public service workers have is that they are beholden to voters. If enough people are angry at your privilege, someone like President Trump will win an election, then demand all Federal workers to return-to-office.

Heck, unionized public workers who’s already in-office full-time ought to make a complaint in the name of fairness. Why do others members of the union get to work-from-home, and you cannot? Shouldn’t all worker’s contract terms be the same?

Paper or plastic

One month into year 2025 and I hope I’ve gotten all the sickness out of the way. Earlier in January I had a bout with the common cold. Just now I am recovering from a stomach virus. That certainly should be it for this year in terms of illnesses. Please, I cannot handle any more away time from lifting weights. I can imaginarily see the gains melting away in front of my very eyes.

Due to the stomach virus, I was on a semi-liquid diet for about a day. Fruit smoothies to the rescue. The location on campus gave me a paper straw for it (thanks a lot, San Francisco). Predictably, the straw utterly disintegrated before I was even halfway done with the smoothie. Happy to save the environment by not being able to finish my drink! If we are serious about this paper straw business, someone has to invent a stronger solution for thicker dinks. (Shark Tank opportunity, I reckon.)

Coincidently, President Trump plans to sign an executive order overturning President Biden’s pledge to ban plastic straw usage in federal agencies. Those lucky bastards! The masses shouldn’t have to suffer with an inferior product in order to make some virtual-signaling environmentalist happy.

I agree plastic waste is a problem. But how do you propose a fruit smoothie be served without a sturdy straw? Sippy lids works for thin liquids, not milk-shake levels of consistency. Give customers a (compostable) spoon? Who wants to “drink” a smoothie with a spoon? You know what, perfect solution: ban smoothies altogether. No need to solve a problem if the problem doesn’t exist anymore.

Sorry, I’m cranky from being sick. Nothing will make you value health more than suffering through illness.

That's not very nice

It’s not everyday you get woken up at 6:00 AM to a tornado warning. Actually, it’s the first of its kind ever in the recorded history of San Francisco. Though I wonder how far back that stretches. What did they do for alerts before the advent of the cellphone? The emergency sirens dating back to World War II, I suppose.

The tornado warning advised to “Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building.” Seeing that it was early Saturday morning, most of us were already indoors - asleep. Good news for me, my room is already the bottommost floor of the house. So what did I do with the warning? Sent a screenshot of it to my friend group-chat, and then promptly went back to sleep.

I think the proper thing to do was to get up and hunker down? I don’t see what difference it would make. If a tornado actually materializes in our vicinity, that in it of itself will promptly wake me back up. You know what? I now understand how folks in tornado and hurricane alleys refuse to heed warnings and stay put. Just like soldiers going into battle, you never think you would die. Despite the mathematical probability staring at the face.

Along with the tsunami warning from last week, it’s been a wild time for San Franciscans. Let’s hope it’s not one of those precursors to a giant earthquake. They’ve been telling us about the next big one since I was in elementary school - three decades ago.

To close or not to close

There was another Presidential debate this evening, and I could not care less. Between this one and the last debate, we’re no longer voting between two senile old men. That in it of itself is a win. Whatever happens in November is whatever. Besides, living in a California means the electoral votes will go to Vice President Harris, regardless of how I vote. It doesn’t materially matter.

Locally in San Francisco, I will have to vote on banning cars on the Great Highway. For those who don’t live here, the Great Highway is a long stretch of road running alongside the western beachhead. The road has been closed to traffic on the weekends already, but now people are petitioning for full time closure.

It seems wrong for me to vote on a thing where I have zero skin in the game. I hardly ever go to the beach (it’s not really a beach weather kind of town), and I don’t use the Great Highway to commute. I think the biggest opponent of banning cars are those who commute on the road. Make sense: I wouldn’t want to deviate from my normal routine either. Plus, it’s simply math: other arterial roads will see an uptick in vehicle traffic, and perhaps congestion.

Proponents of shutting down the Great Highway wants to turn it into a public park. I’m dubious of this one two fronts. One: who the heck is going to pay for the renovations? I thought San Francisco government is in a budget crisis. Second: there’s already a public park there. It’s called… the beach! For a region so much in need of more housing, if we’re going to shut down an entire road for good, let’s turn it residential.

I remain undecided.