My trusty early 2015 Mac Air, has begun doing odd things every three or so weeks. A complete screen glitch in the middle of a YT video felt like an advanced warning. So I ordered an M1 Air.
Then my bank sent me a message saying that it had cancelled the payment instruction because fraud.
I called the number I had for these occasions, and the agent told me that this happened a lot with Apple, John Lewis, Curries and a couple of other retailers. If someone gets your card and orders from those guys, they can do a lot of damage in a short time. They choose those guys because they can resell (on eBay presumably) readily. If they bought an X-E4 from Fuji, it's going to be a while before that shifts. Fair enough, if inconvenient. The bank's agent asked me to make another order so he could make sure this payment went through. Not to worry about the first order, Apple would cancel that when they saw the payment was cancelled.
You can guess what happened. I got one Air delivered and the money taken from my account. I noticed that there was still another payment outstanding. I called the bank. Not to worry, they said, it's just a delay because New Year.
Nope. A couple of days later I got another message from DHL saying they would be delivering my Air. I called Apple (in fact, their outsourced customer handling company) explained the situation, and their agent was totally calm and competent, told me to refuse delivery when the courier arrived, and set a return and credit in motion. All of which went through within a couple of days.
So when the bank cancels your next payment to a retailer, cancel the order as well. Do not assume the retailer will notice.
Anyway.
Everything they say about these M1 Airs is true. It's even smaller than the previous one. The keyboard is terrific, and only Apple make trackpads this good. The screen is just pin-point wow!
The stereo sound system is using some psycho-acoustics that puts voices in the middle of the screen, but then ventriloquises background sound as coming from the left and right walls. Music videos have the music in the middle, though it feels like they are using a `spatial' effect that I last heard on a ghetto-blaster in *cough, splutter*.
After making up an old-school what-I-need-to-transfer-and-install list, I found out about the Migration Assistant. See, that's why we all pay Apple prices. It's not for the kit, it's for the eco-system. It's because they put a tonne of work into developing a program that we would only use twice in the life of the machine, once at the start to import everything from the old machine, and once at the end to export it to the even newer one. Everything came over, and everything works, except for a program called LatextIt!, which is probably searching for some files somewhere they aren't any more.
On the hardware side, I got an Anker multi-adapter for USB-A and card readers, plus additional USB-C ports.
Then I tried ripping some CDs.
My Air told me the USB-A CD drive needed power (the Anker supplies power, the USB-A HDD was running) and I should plug my kit into a USB-C port on the laptop. But. But.
OK. Order a USB-A to C adapter so I can plug the USB-A CD drive into the other USB-C port. Arrives via Amazon Prime in less than 24 hours. Plug in. Yea! Works.
This Air turns into a desktop sprawl if you want to do rip CDs, or read an SD card. The rumours are that the next iteration will have extra slots and an SD card reader, and the Magsafe (which I have not felt the need for so far) port.
I am, however, a happy customer.
Friday, 28 January 2022
Tuesday, 25 January 2022
Tom Torero
Before you read a lot further, listen to this
(Video taken offline by his Executors)
I met Tom Torero in the summer of 2019, for a lunch arranged by a mutual acquaintance who wanted me to explain how to do lifetime bachelorhood. I tried, but I probably failed. Tom was aware of the legal hazards of relationships, but he seemed to be repeating the words, rather than believing it. He had a strong presence and a confident manner that made you want to like and trust him. Yes, I knew about the dodgy infield with the French girl. I could imagine him standing in front of a Year 10 history class. Like a lot of PUAs, he believed in love, that there was someone or two with whom one could have a long-term relationship that retained its romance, and that was what he was looking for, and was disappointed that he had not yet found it.
Tom describes how he re-invented himself in his twenties, physically and psychologically. I did something similar in my thirties, hitting the gym and going to AA Meetings. Physical re-invention is work, but it shows results quite quickly, can be enjoyable and becomes a positive part of your life. Except legs day. In my experience, psychological re-invention is a lot harder, and more fragile. I learned new behaviours and mind-sets, I can shrug my shoulders at things that in the past would have had me fuming, but the basic structure of my soul remains unchanged: I only look normal on the surface. Psychological re-inventors look as if they are in spiritual balance, but it's unstable, whereas Normies are stable. Maintaining an unstable balance all day can be tiring. One trick is to stay away from situations where you might be thrown off.
The Newsweek article could have been written about Rollo Tomassi, or Steve Jabba, or Krauser, or Richard Cooper, or a dozen other people. But it wasn't. It was written about the kid with acne and bottle-glasses, because that's who bullies go for. It was a reminder that for all his work on himself, inside, he was still that kid, and the bullies could see it. And he had nothing else, not even a day job to pay the rent and leave enough over to put aside for old age. He was 41. Being broke and unemployed at 41 is scary - ask me how I know. He was driving round Europe in a van, living off heaven only knows what. It looks like freedom and it smells like fun, but it feels like being on the run. Any therapist would have unhesitatingly referred him to someone else.
Nobody knows why people commit suicide: it's not like we can interview them.
It's a damn shame. He was a decent guy who had come a long way by his own hard work. A lot of people are expressing how much his ideas and teaching meant to them. He lives on in their memory, which is where immortality is found.
I met Tom Torero in the summer of 2019, for a lunch arranged by a mutual acquaintance who wanted me to explain how to do lifetime bachelorhood. I tried, but I probably failed. Tom was aware of the legal hazards of relationships, but he seemed to be repeating the words, rather than believing it. He had a strong presence and a confident manner that made you want to like and trust him. Yes, I knew about the dodgy infield with the French girl. I could imagine him standing in front of a Year 10 history class. Like a lot of PUAs, he believed in love, that there was someone or two with whom one could have a long-term relationship that retained its romance, and that was what he was looking for, and was disappointed that he had not yet found it.
Tom describes how he re-invented himself in his twenties, physically and psychologically. I did something similar in my thirties, hitting the gym and going to AA Meetings. Physical re-invention is work, but it shows results quite quickly, can be enjoyable and becomes a positive part of your life. Except legs day. In my experience, psychological re-invention is a lot harder, and more fragile. I learned new behaviours and mind-sets, I can shrug my shoulders at things that in the past would have had me fuming, but the basic structure of my soul remains unchanged: I only look normal on the surface. Psychological re-inventors look as if they are in spiritual balance, but it's unstable, whereas Normies are stable. Maintaining an unstable balance all day can be tiring. One trick is to stay away from situations where you might be thrown off.
The Newsweek article could have been written about Rollo Tomassi, or Steve Jabba, or Krauser, or Richard Cooper, or a dozen other people. But it wasn't. It was written about the kid with acne and bottle-glasses, because that's who bullies go for. It was a reminder that for all his work on himself, inside, he was still that kid, and the bullies could see it. And he had nothing else, not even a day job to pay the rent and leave enough over to put aside for old age. He was 41. Being broke and unemployed at 41 is scary - ask me how I know. He was driving round Europe in a van, living off heaven only knows what. It looks like freedom and it smells like fun, but it feels like being on the run. Any therapist would have unhesitatingly referred him to someone else.
Nobody knows why people commit suicide: it's not like we can interview them.
It's a damn shame. He was a decent guy who had come a long way by his own hard work. A lot of people are expressing how much his ideas and teaching meant to them. He lives on in their memory, which is where immortality is found.
Friday, 21 January 2022
Welfare Mothers, Neil Young
Welfare Mothers make better lovers. That's the chorus. Try Googling for some interpretations and a saddening majority of the answers suggest that Neil Young is a) attracted to welfare mothers, b) thinks that other men should be attracted to welfare mothers.
(Shakes head slowly, sighs)
The live version has an interlude in which the Welfare Mother is eagerly awaiting and then receiving her cheque from the Government. It's clearly her only source of income.
This is not a Single Working Mom, that heroine-figure of Late Feminism / Capitalism(*). This is not Sienna Miller in Burnt - which is very silly and very watchable film.
This is an unemployed woman who made some very bad choices and can't make her way out of the consequences.
I've said before that Normies simply don't see Screw-Ups, and so never get involved with them. The way Screw-Ups know they are Un-Screwing themselves, is that they stop being attracted to other Screw-Ups, and begin to wonder how they could ever have been attracted to Screw-Ups. (OK, so, maybe because Hot, but Hot and Only Hot is a One-Night Stand, not a relationship.)
So those people thinking Neil Young was commending welfare mothers to them?
Screw-Ups.
I bet the chorus line was a bumper-sticker. If it wasn't, it should have been.
It was Neil Young being sarcastic.
(*) Drop me a line if you ever work out the difference between the two, mod rhetoric.
(Shakes head slowly, sighs)
The live version has an interlude in which the Welfare Mother is eagerly awaiting and then receiving her cheque from the Government. It's clearly her only source of income.
This is not a Single Working Mom, that heroine-figure of Late Feminism / Capitalism(*). This is not Sienna Miller in Burnt - which is very silly and very watchable film.
This is an unemployed woman who made some very bad choices and can't make her way out of the consequences.
I've said before that Normies simply don't see Screw-Ups, and so never get involved with them. The way Screw-Ups know they are Un-Screwing themselves, is that they stop being attracted to other Screw-Ups, and begin to wonder how they could ever have been attracted to Screw-Ups. (OK, so, maybe because Hot, but Hot and Only Hot is a One-Night Stand, not a relationship.)
So those people thinking Neil Young was commending welfare mothers to them?
Screw-Ups.
I bet the chorus line was a bumper-sticker. If it wasn't, it should have been.
It was Neil Young being sarcastic.
(*) Drop me a line if you ever work out the difference between the two, mod rhetoric.
Tuesday, 18 January 2022
Don't Stop The People, Outlaw The Dinghies
No dinghies, no immigrants.
The French, or the EU, pass a law that requires all dinghies - which will be very broadly defined - must be licensed, and that any dinghy out on the water must be operated by a Licensed Dinghy Operator (LDO) or an employee of a Competent Dinghy Owner (CDO). CDOs are Goverment organisations such as the Police, Customs, Immigration, Lifeboats and so on. Non-CDO licensing will be done at the local police station, and getting an Operator's licence will require an examination held once a year in a small hall in Clermont-Ferrand Only EU nationals can license a dinghy, and registration must be made by an LDO or the competent applicant (CA) of a CDO. Competent applicants must be company secretaries. Anyone with a Master's Ticket is automatically an LDO. A dinghy must display a license with the name of its LDO / CDO. Oddly, these licence documents will only be available to French organisations: the gendarmerie will always be waiting for those to arrive.
Unlicensed dinghies are subject to immediate confiscation by the French Police. Selling a dinghy to anyone who is not an LDO/CDO is illegal, as is transporting unlicensed dinghies. As you can guess, practically every dinghy not on a ship or used by a government organisation, will be unlicensed.
Now when the French Police see a bunch of people huddled around a dinghy, they can move in, confiscate the dinghy, and leave. No need to ask for anyone's papers. No need to get involved in debates about illegal immigration or anything else. They're just taking the dinghy. And leaving Gaston behind to make sure nobody brings another dinghy out from behind the shed.
If the dinghy does make it into the water, the French can go after it, make them turn around, confiscate the dinghy, and leave everyone else on the shore. Nobody is stopping illegal immigrants illegally immigrating. It's just an administrative law. Nothing personal.
The French, or the EU, pass a law that requires all dinghies - which will be very broadly defined - must be licensed, and that any dinghy out on the water must be operated by a Licensed Dinghy Operator (LDO) or an employee of a Competent Dinghy Owner (CDO). CDOs are Goverment organisations such as the Police, Customs, Immigration, Lifeboats and so on. Non-CDO licensing will be done at the local police station, and getting an Operator's licence will require an examination held once a year in a small hall in Clermont-Ferrand Only EU nationals can license a dinghy, and registration must be made by an LDO or the competent applicant (CA) of a CDO. Competent applicants must be company secretaries. Anyone with a Master's Ticket is automatically an LDO. A dinghy must display a license with the name of its LDO / CDO. Oddly, these licence documents will only be available to French organisations: the gendarmerie will always be waiting for those to arrive.
Unlicensed dinghies are subject to immediate confiscation by the French Police. Selling a dinghy to anyone who is not an LDO/CDO is illegal, as is transporting unlicensed dinghies. As you can guess, practically every dinghy not on a ship or used by a government organisation, will be unlicensed.
Now when the French Police see a bunch of people huddled around a dinghy, they can move in, confiscate the dinghy, and leave. No need to ask for anyone's papers. No need to get involved in debates about illegal immigration or anything else. They're just taking the dinghy. And leaving Gaston behind to make sure nobody brings another dinghy out from behind the shed.
If the dinghy does make it into the water, the French can go after it, make them turn around, confiscate the dinghy, and leave everyone else on the shore. Nobody is stopping illegal immigrants illegally immigrating. It's just an administrative law. Nothing personal.
Friday, 14 January 2022
Forming Habits Instead of Setting Goals
Despite all the hype, a salaryman doesn't need any self-discipline or inner drive. What he needs is the ability to grind and the fortitude not to run screaming from it all.
Consider how my waking days went. 05:15 - 08:00: wake up, breakfast, commute, sit in cafe, walk to work; 08:00 - 16:00: work; 16:00 - 17:30: travel to gym and work out; 17:30 - 18:45: commute; 18:45 - 21:30: supper and maybe watch a movie or a couple of episodes of something.
That leaves about two hours free time in the evening.
How much effort did I have to put into filling my time?
None. My big decision was what to read on the train.
Now I don't have a job.
Now I have to make decisions?
One thing I know: direction, plans, goals, and self-discipline are not the tools I need.
That's externalising one's motivation: it's why gurus say we should tell our friends what we want to achieve and have them "keep us honest".
That's how jobs work.
The way our time works is that there are things we have to do, and having done those (aka "been productive"), we do things we enjoy doing. Which doesn't mean lazing in the sunshine - though I bet it does on the Northern Mediterranean coast - and could mean doing things that are challenging in Millennial-speak. I'm not sure what kind of challenging I would be interested in, but I'm pretty sure You Tube rabbit holes aren't it. Or spending too long reading the newspaper (on my iPad, of course).
I think the trick is to do the compulsory stuff (exercise, walk, food shopping, cooking and cleaning) first and early, and then I have the rest of the day to do anything or everything else.
Which is a habit it will take a few weeks to form.
Consider how my waking days went. 05:15 - 08:00: wake up, breakfast, commute, sit in cafe, walk to work; 08:00 - 16:00: work; 16:00 - 17:30: travel to gym and work out; 17:30 - 18:45: commute; 18:45 - 21:30: supper and maybe watch a movie or a couple of episodes of something.
That leaves about two hours free time in the evening.
How much effort did I have to put into filling my time?
None. My big decision was what to read on the train.
Now I don't have a job.
Now I have to make decisions?
One thing I know: direction, plans, goals, and self-discipline are not the tools I need.
That's externalising one's motivation: it's why gurus say we should tell our friends what we want to achieve and have them "keep us honest".
That's how jobs work.
The way our time works is that there are things we have to do, and having done those (aka "been productive"), we do things we enjoy doing. Which doesn't mean lazing in the sunshine - though I bet it does on the Northern Mediterranean coast - and could mean doing things that are challenging in Millennial-speak. I'm not sure what kind of challenging I would be interested in, but I'm pretty sure You Tube rabbit holes aren't it. Or spending too long reading the newspaper (on my iPad, of course).
I think the trick is to do the compulsory stuff (exercise, walk, food shopping, cooking and cleaning) first and early, and then I have the rest of the day to do anything or everything else.
Which is a habit it will take a few weeks to form.
Tuesday, 11 January 2022
Goals and Plans For 2022
So given my prediction for 2022, and my expectation that what has rightly been called Covid Theatre will continue to 2025, what the hey am I going to do to improve my life in 2022? Never mind onwards?
I started to think of some things I might do, and halfway through thought these are all tweaks. What would not-tweaks look like?
When I made a list, with the usual items such as part-time work, I spotted the commonality: all of them were about adopting something out there to provide structure, meaning and direction to my life.
Let's see, I did that for 43 years.
How did it work out?
It was so wonderful that...
I don't miss my day job. I don't miss seeing the people. I don't feel lonely and I don't feel like my mental health is deteriorating.
I already did the one thing most guaranteed to improve my life.
I retired.
I have three daily goals: 1) stay sober, 2) stay as fit and healthy as I can, 3) occupy myself with whatever takes my fancy from time to time.
Maybe you would do something far more worthy and virtuous.
You do you, and I'll do me.
For the first time in 43 years.
I started to think of some things I might do, and halfway through thought these are all tweaks. What would not-tweaks look like?
When I made a list, with the usual items such as part-time work, I spotted the commonality: all of them were about adopting something out there to provide structure, meaning and direction to my life.
Let's see, I did that for 43 years.
How did it work out?
It was so wonderful that...
I don't miss my day job. I don't miss seeing the people. I don't feel lonely and I don't feel like my mental health is deteriorating.
I already did the one thing most guaranteed to improve my life.
I retired.
I have three daily goals: 1) stay sober, 2) stay as fit and healthy as I can, 3) occupy myself with whatever takes my fancy from time to time.
Maybe you would do something far more worthy and virtuous.
You do you, and I'll do me.
For the first time in 43 years.
Friday, 7 January 2022
Follow The Money vs Mass Formation Psychosis
The latest theory about why we accepted lockdowns and restrictions is called "Mass Formation Psychosis" (MFP). It says that when a population experiences a) lack of social bond and isolation, b) feels life as meaningless or senseless, and c) has free-floating anxiety, then they are sitting targets for someone offering up a scapegoat, and if the accompanying rhetoric takes, people will start to do things they would never otherwise thing of doing. (Don't mention Germany in the 1930's.)
I don't like theories that excuse people's behaviour by saying, in effect, that they went bonkers because their lives were a bit off, and were tipped over the edge by some crass propaganda.
Most people are not fragile. Most people do not go bonkers. (Except people who go to psychiatrists and therapists, who in turn come up with ideas like MFP.)
Most people do know a good thing when they see it.
So when the Government told us all to go home - well, except train drivers, farmers, shepherds, foresters, binmen, nurses, supermarket workers, lorry drivers, firemen, policemen, pharmacists, builders, telecoms repairmen, sewage plant workers... oh, actually, pretty much the entire working class, making up about 50% of the working population - so when the Government told everyone with a cushy laptop job to go home, they all went home.
Because they could sleep in and save a ton of money. They saved a lot in April-June 2020, and then what amounted to an average train fare / petrol costs after that. (I looked at the data. People who didn't have laptop jobs saved much less, but not many actually came out worse.) They saved money by not going on expensive foreign holidays, or buying takeaways at lunchtime. They spent some of that money doing up the house / flat. Parents who liked their children got to see more of their great kids. Couples who had been wanting to, um, "spend more time together", did so. Unscrupulous people took out emergency business loans they had no intention of repaying, and bought Porsches. Unscrupulous employers claimed furlough and kept their people at work, effectively getting a salary subsidy. Drama queens were in seventh heaven. Amazon brought things to your door, and you were in to receive them. Employees were getting furlough, self-employed people were getting subsidies. Most businesses were not paying rates and many were paying reduced rents. Banks gave out repayment holidays to anyone who asked. Builders, decorators and other tradesmen were making out like bandits.
What was not to like?(*)
But.
No-one wanted to admit they were doing well out of this.
Other People were dying. Other People were suffering from psychological problems. Other People's kids were having a hard time. Some businesses were closing.
Walking around with a big grin on your face would be... tactless? Tone-deaf?
Masks, social distancing, testing, Track-and-Trace, getting Pinged, not being able to see the In-Laws you never really liked anyway... these weresmall prices to pay for all the advantages absolutely essential public health measures for Other People's benefit. What self-sacrifice! What virtue!
The appearance of nationwide bonkers-ness was created by Government policies were badly-thought out, inconsistent and fragmentary, communicated and enforced by crass and crude propaganda. Of course they weren't gaslighting psychopaths, but that was how they behaved.
Add to that the special interest pushers, apoplectic wanna-be tyrants, strong-leader fetishists, policy dumb-asses, creepy careerists, corporate cost-savers, faceless bureaucrats looking for fifteen minutes of fame, airhead marketeers, get-rich-quick operators selling PPE and tests... all given free column inches and airtime by the usual bunch of mavens, journalists and commentators desperate for content.
The sense of crazy was entirely an artefact of the media.
So we don't need an elaborate and dubious psychiatric theory to explain why someone paid six figures to be smart, thinks that wearing a tissue-flimsy mask is effective against a nano-virus modified to be highly contagious(**).
We just need to follow the money.
(*) Yes. I am telling you that at least almost half the population actually mostly liked the first lockdown, and made the best of it, especially if they avoided the media. The anxiety was about when it would end, to which the answer was July. The second lockdown was nothing like as bad, and most people who wanted to be at the workplace could be and were. The other almost-half of the population went about its jobs as usual right from the start. The people who suffered were those "shielding", or in bad domestic situations, or who were vulnerable. That's not a large proportion of the population, but when the population is 63,000,000, it is still a lot of people.
(**) If masks work, it is because they make talking awkward and shouting almost uncomfortable. That reduces the amount of air you expel with force from your respiratory tract where all those nasty viruses live. But if they said that, you would feel like a naughty child every time you wore one.
I don't like theories that excuse people's behaviour by saying, in effect, that they went bonkers because their lives were a bit off, and were tipped over the edge by some crass propaganda.
Most people are not fragile. Most people do not go bonkers. (Except people who go to psychiatrists and therapists, who in turn come up with ideas like MFP.)
Most people do know a good thing when they see it.
So when the Government told us all to go home - well, except train drivers, farmers, shepherds, foresters, binmen, nurses, supermarket workers, lorry drivers, firemen, policemen, pharmacists, builders, telecoms repairmen, sewage plant workers... oh, actually, pretty much the entire working class, making up about 50% of the working population - so when the Government told everyone with a cushy laptop job to go home, they all went home.
Because they could sleep in and save a ton of money. They saved a lot in April-June 2020, and then what amounted to an average train fare / petrol costs after that. (I looked at the data. People who didn't have laptop jobs saved much less, but not many actually came out worse.) They saved money by not going on expensive foreign holidays, or buying takeaways at lunchtime. They spent some of that money doing up the house / flat. Parents who liked their children got to see more of their great kids. Couples who had been wanting to, um, "spend more time together", did so. Unscrupulous people took out emergency business loans they had no intention of repaying, and bought Porsches. Unscrupulous employers claimed furlough and kept their people at work, effectively getting a salary subsidy. Drama queens were in seventh heaven. Amazon brought things to your door, and you were in to receive them. Employees were getting furlough, self-employed people were getting subsidies. Most businesses were not paying rates and many were paying reduced rents. Banks gave out repayment holidays to anyone who asked. Builders, decorators and other tradesmen were making out like bandits.
What was not to like?(*)
But.
No-one wanted to admit they were doing well out of this.
Other People were dying. Other People were suffering from psychological problems. Other People's kids were having a hard time. Some businesses were closing.
Walking around with a big grin on your face would be... tactless? Tone-deaf?
Masks, social distancing, testing, Track-and-Trace, getting Pinged, not being able to see the In-Laws you never really liked anyway... these were
The appearance of nationwide bonkers-ness was created by Government policies were badly-thought out, inconsistent and fragmentary, communicated and enforced by crass and crude propaganda. Of course they weren't gaslighting psychopaths, but that was how they behaved.
Add to that the special interest pushers, apoplectic wanna-be tyrants, strong-leader fetishists, policy dumb-asses, creepy careerists, corporate cost-savers, faceless bureaucrats looking for fifteen minutes of fame, airhead marketeers, get-rich-quick operators selling PPE and tests... all given free column inches and airtime by the usual bunch of mavens, journalists and commentators desperate for content.
The sense of crazy was entirely an artefact of the media.
So we don't need an elaborate and dubious psychiatric theory to explain why someone paid six figures to be smart, thinks that wearing a tissue-flimsy mask is effective against a nano-virus modified to be highly contagious(**).
We just need to follow the money.
(*) Yes. I am telling you that at least almost half the population actually mostly liked the first lockdown, and made the best of it, especially if they avoided the media. The anxiety was about when it would end, to which the answer was July. The second lockdown was nothing like as bad, and most people who wanted to be at the workplace could be and were. The other almost-half of the population went about its jobs as usual right from the start. The people who suffered were those "shielding", or in bad domestic situations, or who were vulnerable. That's not a large proportion of the population, but when the population is 63,000,000, it is still a lot of people.
(**) If masks work, it is because they make talking awkward and shouting almost uncomfortable. That reduces the amount of air you expel with force from your respiratory tract where all those nasty viruses live. But if they said that, you would feel like a naughty child every time you wore one.
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