Week two of unemployment is in the books. It was characterized mostly by the growing realization that if I want a job, I'm going to have to make my own. My industry is a shitshow, and at my age, nobody outside my niche is going to even talk to me about a job. So I spent the week dutifully applying to jobs I won't even get interviewed for, while working my network for consulting opportunities to kick off self-employment. That latter option was far more productive this week. In addition, I have been learning all about forming an LLC, self-employment taxes, insurance needs, the Virginia Healthcare Marketplace, etc. I was very busy for a guy with no job.

Yesterday was hair appointment day for my wife, so we got up early to make the 60-mile trek to Fredericksburg. While she was doing the hair thing, I had coffee with a friend. I successfully avoided walking into the awesome used bookstore there because I have far too many books from previous visits that I have not read yet. Of course, we brought a cooler filled with ice so that we could stop by Carl's for a treat, as well as get a quart of custard home without it melting.

The No Kings protests across the nation, across the world really, have really uplifted me. 10 million+ people turned out in 1000 different locations to collectively tell the fascist regime to go fuck itself. Combined with the laughable turnout for Tangerine Palpatine's birthday parade, the events of today are a clear victory for the good guys. But now is not the time to get complacent. A rabid animal backed into a corner is dangerous, and his Trumpiness must be very pissed about how bad the optics were on his big day.

In other news, I dominated family game night last night, winning decisively in both Sagrada and Trekking Through History.

Today is Father's Day in the US. We have no plans, just doing the usual thing. On Sunday mornings, the usual thing is grocery shopping and other errands. Then I'm making my Puerto Rican inspired chicken and rice for dinner. Yes, I am cooking on Father's Day.

¯\_(?)_/¯

Links

Given that it is Father's Day, the very unlikely combination of events that led to me meeting my wife is worth revisiting.

I posted a bunch of photos from our afternoon at the botanical gardens last week.

This directory of abandoned blogs is quite the trip down memory lane.

This 12-minute video about how phones have caused us to neglect our real-world relationships is worth watching.

The Small Web is Beautiful. One thought I had reading this is how almost nobody that I know IRL reads my blog. It used to bother me a little. But I've come to realize that the IndieWeb is not for everybody. It requires a little more work, a little more bravery in putting yourself out there, and a little more caring about other people. I'd rather spend my time with the kind of people that feel comfortable on the IndieWeb.

And that is it for this week. Remember, in a world where you can choose to be anything, you can choose to be kind.

We headed over to Lewis Ginter this morning to exercise our membership. The flowers were blooming, and we got 25 bird species too. I saw an agitated Blue Jay in a tree and when I took a look with my bins I saw why he was so agitated. There was a Barred Owl in the tree. The Blue Jay successfully chased the owl out of the tree, unfortunately while I was trying to focus on the owl with my camera. We followed the owl to get another look, as did the Blue Jay. We did not find the owl again, but we did find a Red Shouldered Hawk that was getting the business from that same Blue Jay. I did manage to get a photo of the hawk.

That is one bad ass Blue Jay. 2-0 against an owl and a hawk in a 5-minute period. I saw two Blue jays in that tree where the owl is, so I'm wondering if it was protecting a nest.

Also, after never seeing an owl in 4 or 5 years of birding we've gotten two in the last few weeks.

Photo album

Happy weekend to both of you reading this :) Actually, Tiny Analytics recently informed me that I'm averaging over 1000 visits a month, which exceeds the free account threshold, and that they would like me to start paying. I never thought site traffic would build back up like that. I'll probably just remove the analytics because I really don't care about the stats.

I spent the week looking for a job. It's bleak out there. I've also spent a lot of time this week thinking, researching, and playing with cash flow spreadsheets for being self-employed. Right now its 50/50 which way I go. If my options at the end of this month are take a job I'm not excited about or go solo, I think I'll go solo. Maybe. This decision is more complicated than it needs to be in the US because of of the lack of a social safety net. I'll have to buy my own health insurance, which will be my second largest monthly expense after my mortgage. And even with that hefty premium, I'm still looking at needing thousands of upfront cash to get by deductibles. It could actually cost more than my mortgage on an annual basis. Imagine needing two mortgages just to get by. It fucking sucks. Basically, only live in the US if you rolled a 20 on your Constitution roll during character creation.

You'd think not working would mean I have lots of links for you, but I don't. I'm not sure if that is related to how focused I was on looking for a job, or maybe my mood was shit all week and nothing seemed good to me.

You should use /tmp more argues that we should get in the habit of puttting any temporary downloads in /tmp, so we always know they can just be deleted later. When I think about all the time I spend deciding what in my downloads folder I need versus what can go, this seems like a very good idea.

This 15 minute video argues that the hyper growth of the last 150 years is a complete outlier that has to end. We spent millions and maybe billions of years building up fossil fuels in the earth, and we are going to use up all that stored energy in 200 years.

If confronted by the police, can you prove you are a US Citizen? Unless you are carrying your birth certificate or passport around with you 24 x 7, your answer is nope. Scalzi makes a very strong case for getting a passport card and keeping it in your wallet, not for crossing into Canada or Mexico on a regular basis, but to avoid getting sent to El Salvador if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

AI is an important technology, but LLMs are likely to kill us all before we master the power of the technology. LLMs are basically very expensive Mad Libs. It's not crafting answers to your prompts, it's filling in the blanks, often totally devoid of context.

Keep writing and publishing, especially if nobody is reading. It's the only way you'll get better.

And that is it for this week. Remember, in a world where you can choose to be anything, you can choose to be kind.