Blog

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

Here we go again

The omicron variant of COVID 19 is contagious as heck!

I am confined to working from home until the end of this week. In fact, our entire department has paused in-person service on campus for the same duration. On a similar vein, classes at San Francisco State is going completely remote for the first three weeks of the Spring semester. It seems like we’re going backwards in terms of progress, but it’s the correct decision given the amount of infections and close-contacts.

Both my housemates tested positive last week, which is why I am staying home this week. San Francisco Department of Public Health guidelines state that if you’re vaccinated (in any capacity) and you’ve come in close-contact with a COVID infected person - but you have zero symptoms, you actually don’t have to quarantine! Wear a proper mask and you can go about your business as normal. I guess we’re playing it more cautiously when my supervisor told me to go home last Thursday.

I would have been perfectly okay with continuing work on campus.

Anyways, I’m getting a PCR test later this morning. Thankfully it’s the saliva method and not the one where they stick a thing way up your nose. My friends who’ve had the latter said it was not a pleasant experience in the slightest. Fingers crossed it returns negative.

It’s another weird start to yet another year. 2020 we were looking at bad news from Asia and Italy, and doing nothing ourselves to prepare for the eventuality. 2021 we were rejoicing at the availability of the vaccines, (falsely) thinking we were going back to normal fairly soon. 2022 looks like it’s pseudo lockdown part two, electric boogaloo.

A rare sight: a clean first-generation Ford Focus!

How the turntables

I was writing yesterday about how difficult it still is to buy a new-generation gaming console. The PS5 and the XBOX Series X is out of stock everywhere, and the periodic drops the retail stores do are infrequent enough to miss unless your’e super lucky. I even wrote at the end that I reckon my gaming days are over!

Well, I was super lucky shortly after that. Just as I was done with breakfast, I saw on my twitter feed a post by The Verge saying the PlayStation 5 is in stock at Best Buy online. Without getting my hopes up, it was a worth a shot, so I got in on the virtual line. Meanwhile, I created a Best Buy account as that was a prerequisite for purchasing. The stars must be aligning, because soon as I was done with account creation, it was a my turn to finalize a purchase.

I’ll be picking up a PS5 this Sunday at my local Best Buy store. What a surprising turn of events!

Sadly I won’t be actually playing on the PS5 anytime soon. I will need to buy a TV as well. The most suitable unit would be the 42-inch LG C2 OLED that was just announced this week at CES. That is scheduled for release in the Spring, so I’ve got a bit of waiting to do. It’s been a relatively long time since I actually had a gaming console, so what’s another few months of waiting? No need to compromise on the TV I want simply due to impatience.

Besides, there isn’t yet a truly next-gen game out that I’m desperate to play. Gran Turismo 7 isn’t out until March. If anything, I will probably be playing PlayStation 4 titles that received quality updates for the PS5. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is one such game.

Anyways, I guess if you shout at the universe enough, sometimes it will give you what you want.

Really? Come on, man

It really grinds my gears to see guides like this: the best PS5 accessories for 2022! As if we are able to simply walk into any Best Buy and Target today and buy one these gaming consoles. A solid year since both the PlayStation 5 and the XBOX Series X have launched, and supplies are still heavily constrained. Unless your’e willing to pay extortion prices on eBay (I’m not), to snag a unit you practically have to keep an eye on supply drops everywhere. Miss them by minutes and stock will be gone again.

On a similar vein, yesterday Nvidia announced the latest top-tier gaming graphics card: the RTX 3090 Ti. Meanwhile, plebs like us still can’t buy a regular RTX 3080 for MSRP. Supplies are so low that practically every place that sells it is charging double. Why doesn’t Nvidia concentrate on making more 3080 cards instead of releasing yet another new card?

I understand why there is a shortage, but it doesn’t make it less frustrating.

However, I really don’t need a gaming console. I hardly have time to game in between my other hobbies and happenings. A PlayStation 5 would just sit and collect dust like my PlayStation 4 did. I currently don’t even have a television to plug a console into. My Pro Display XDR famously only have one input (thunderbolt 3) with no physical controls. A PS5 will work, but there’s no way to control screen brightness or turn on HDR. The $5,000 Apple display truly is the most niche of products. But I do love mine!

I honestly think my days of gaming are over, at least for the foreseeable future.

Pro Display blemish

A week ago just after Christmas, I noticed a tiny dark splotch at the bottom center of my Pro Display XDR. No matter what is being displayed, the screen blemish is constant. Probably a malfunctioning LED, one out of the 576 in the backlight array. I’ve had the monitor for about six weeks before I even caught this defect, likely one of those things where you don’t see it, but once you do, you can never unsee it.

I likely would have let it go if the display had cost $500. But since the Pro Display XDR famously starts at $5,000, the screen had better be as close to perfect as possible! The panel has a one year warranty, so off to the Apple store I went. Carrying a display worth that much from the mall parking lot to the store was rather stressful. The box indicated exactly what’s inside, ripe for enterprising robbers to have an easy payday.

My local Apple store did not even have the requisite power and data cables (nor the $1,000 Pro Stand to prop up the monitor) on hand to test at the Genius Bar. All they could do is check for exterior damage, then intake the display for further testing. I figured once the tech verify the splotch, Apple would simply ship an entire replacement unit. The Pro Display XDR doesn’t look to be a product that can be serviced readily. Take off the front glass to repair a single LED? No way.

A replacement display is exactly what Apple sent to the store some five days later. Quite a quick turnaround, given the globe chip shortage still ongoing. The staff there was curiously surprised Apple didn’t send parts instead, though I’m not sure I would want a display that’s been fettled with internally by a store-level tech. No offense: not for a $5,000 monitor.

After suffering another stressful journey from the Apple store to the parking lot, carrying an effectively brand-new Pro Display XDR, I’m happy to report the replacement screen is as clean as can be. Hopefully I won’t have to do this again.

I don't know about you

Hello there! It sure is wonderful to see the dawn of another day and a new year. The COVID pandemic rages on, but I’m rather optimistic about 2022. I really wish to be able to travel to my beloved Asia again - sans the need to quarantine. We shall see. For now, the cold and rain of winter is the reality, and the routine of every day life.

It was nice to not have a routine from Christmas Eve onwards until New Year’s Day. Working in higher education grants me the privilege of having that week off every single year. My last day of work in 2021 was the 22nd of December, which is something to be smug about, honestly. I don’t have to work in tech-bro land to have this perk! Granted, I don’t get paid like I would be if I worked in tech.

So it was a splendid week of rest and relaxation. I slept about 10 hours every day, and then went about my business as slowly as possible. I spent an hour just to eat dinner! It’s incredibly nice to not have to rush through things or treat the mundane stuff as mere obstacles to get onto the fun stuff. Taking my sweet time to perform my morning grooming because I don’t have to rush to get to work on time is a small joy.

The Hawaiians and their “island time” are kind of geniuses.

Anyways, I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions because any changes I want to do, I don’t wait until the calendar flips to a new one. However, I did make one tiny but significant change to start 2022: I deleted twitter off my iPhone. I now have zero social media apps. No longer will I waste half an hour (at least) each morning and each night browsing through the feed in bed. It’s not a good use of time, and it’s not healthy towards my quality of sleep.

I wish us all a great 2022. Let’s get after it.

All you plebs

I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of staring at the gorgeous Apple Pro Display XDR. So much so that I’ve yet to take my new M1 Max MacBook Pro out of clamshell mode. I’m sure I’ll eventually use the portability of the notebook in the future, fingers crossed. But for now, a large external display on a desk is far better for the eyes and ergonomics. And there is none better for the Mac platform than the $5,000 Pro Display XDR. It is worth every single penny.

All you plebs whinging about how Apple should produce a cheaper display (and yet somehow keep the local-dimming LEDs and HDR capabilities) because the Pro Display XDR is vastly unaffordable (no arguments from me there) should simply save up some more. The Pro Display XDR is the one you really want. Stop kidding yourselves.

It’s interesting how quickly I got used to the 32-inch size of the Apple display, even though it’s the largest monitor I’ve ever had. The thin bezels really mask how large the display surface is. An equivalently-sized monitor from another manufacturer feels bigger. Apple design sure knows how to make things exquisite! I remember my first ever HD television back in the day: a Sony 32-inch 1080p Bravia. The bezels on that were two inches thick, and it made the TV look absolutely huge, even though the pane size is the same as this Pro Display XDR I’m staring at right now.

Heck, a 27-inch iMac feels bigger. Because of the inch-thick bezels. Thine eyes play tricks upon thee.

If I had to wish for another display from Apple, I would actually say a larger Pro Display XDR. The price for one of those would be hilarious. Moot point, however: I intend to keep this one for at least 10 years. That’s the only way I can justify spending $5,000 on a display: amortized it over a very long period. Says the guy who switches to a new iPhone every year, but that’s a different topic…

The power of negativity

We got this new guy at work who is quite interesting. In the morning he greets everyone with “It’s going to be a long day”, after the typical salutations. I’ve come to call this the power of negativity. Can’t be disappointed at an arduous work day when that’s already your expectation going in! Perhaps the new guy is smart, rather than quirky. Realistic, rather than negative.

Joking aside, I’m not sure greeting someone that way is the best strategy. Unless of course it is understood by everyone that that particularly day is indeed going to be a rough one (the beginning of a new semester, perhaps). Otherwise, who wants to hear that negativity first thing in the morning? The rest of us head into the workday wishing for the exact opposite: a quiet, no drama day that quickly goes by so we can return to our regular life. Hearing someone say that it’s going to be a long day just isn’t pleasant.

You want people to have a positive feeling when they see you. I’m not sure this new guy of ours is doing that.

Not to say I entirely subscribe to the whole power of positivity thing. It’s more that I believe happiness is a choice. The treadmill never ends if you’re counting on something in the future to make you happy. I choose to (and try to) have a positive predisposition at all times. Because why put on additional mental stress, especially during the truly tough times? If I can’t be happy solving a hard problem at work, then I’m not going to find happiness on a weekend morning with plenty of free time.

A few days ago the new guy said his “it’s going to be a long day” greeting to our supervisor. He responded with, “No, it’s going to be a great day!”. Now that’s a supervisor I’m glad to work under.