~balise's blog (powered by TTBP)



04 august 2024

Essentially mix of excitment and anxiety at the perspective of Wikimania + the additional stress around Other Stuff. We'll see. I should probably start packing so that I can do last minute laundry tomorrow if necessary. Aaaaaa!


Considered going for an AlphabeticalZürich walk, and decided against it due to

tired. I did plan the next one, though, and it's on the 72, so it should be

reasonably accessible.


Got a haircut today!! It had been two years. I took an appointment on a whim last night at around midnight for this morning - I initially wanted to target Monday morning, and realized they were open on Sunday too. I'm not necessarily a fan of being part of the reason why people work on Sundays, though, so I don't feel great about that. BUT my hair will not look like weird tentacles in my back if I end up on any picture during Wikimania. So, there.



03 august 2024

Sports / running

Tried on my new shoes & socks this morning on the run. It was mostly good, but my feet muscles were definitely not having the same feel as usual. I went a bit further away today, just to check the next bridge over the Sihl, and with the vague plan of "maybe I'll push a bit after the 30-minute mark". The 30-minute mark came and I still stopped, though. I was a bit further away from home, but that was fine.


Feeling a bit bleh. I need to pack to go to Katowice/Wikimania next week, and I need to do laundry before that, and it's 13:00 and I don't have lunch plans/ideas yet. I also need to get some food to survive the week-end, and making a plan for that feels like something I REALLY DON'T WANT TO DO. I guess I'll just go to Migros, grab a bunch of stuff, probably something quicker for today's lunch - but for that I need to go shower first too. Bleh. I'm tired and cranky because I'm not getting enough sleep, and it's my own damn fault, and grmbl.


Okay, it took the whole day, essentially, and a significant amount of self-loathing, but I fed myself, I did the batch of laundry I really wanted to make (and it's even folded and in the closet), and I went to the supermarket and got food.


Today's moods: https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/dinosandcomics-finished/940-boyfriend/viewer?title_no=657052&episode_no=941 and https://www.bouletcorp.com/rogatons/2024/08/03 (this one's in French)


Blizzard modified the WoW pre-patch event so that it's both less frustrating and easier to get rewards, and I'm quite happy about that.


I almost bought some cacti today, but I have no idea how to properly care for cacti and I'd be devastated if they died early. So I guess that first I need to read about how to care for cacti.



02 august 2024

Writever

Well, it's officially August 2nd, but I did finish July Writever. So here are the last entries!

Writever July 28th

The word for July 28th was "Decenter".

As the climate change is becoming a more and more pressing issue, more and more ludicrous ideas are gaining traction. The latest I've seen is the Decenter project, whose goal is to modify the orbit of Earth around the Sun so that it's a bit further away (and colder) and somewhat off-center (to get a longer cold season). And to take the opportunity to offset a bit more to compensate for the CO2 production necessary for such an endeavour, obviously...

Writever July 29th

The word for July 29th was "Speaking".

"Sasha and I aren't exactly on speaking terms anymore.

− Oh, what happened? Did you fight?

− Quite the opposite! We got matching My-Mind-To-Your-Mind implants, so speech became mostly useless between us.

− Only mostly?

− Yeah, puns are still much better out loud."

Writever July 30th

The word for July 30th was "Survey".

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a librarian. More than the books themselves, I think I had a fascination for the Dewey system, and finding the right code for every book.

Later, I found tremendous joy in inputting and organizing all kinds of data, from my sticker collection to samples at the lab.

When the new exploration mission started recruiting, I applied for the survey cataloger job. The day I got selected is still the happiest day of my life.

Writever July 31st

The word for July 31ts was "Black".

Most colonists adjust pretty well to the underground facilities. A lot of effort has been made to give a good day/night cycle, and the progress around sun-substituting lights have been impressive (the people working the 'ponics even need sunscreen!)

But we haven't found a way yet to get stars look like anything else than a bunch of lights projected on too black a screen. Turns out, nightlight is much harder to get right than daylight.



01 august 2024

Busy day for a public holiday! Went for a long walk for AlphabeticalZürich (I still need to transfer the pictures to the computer). Had a fairly late lunch, and hurried to the gym (note to self: never ever again go to the gym that close after a meal. Stomach was NOT impressed.). Lifted weights, was okay. Talked to S. on her last day of work with us, which was nice, but also a bit sad. And had dinner at Brasserie Fédéral with C. and A., had a really nice evening.

I'm still feeling a lot of anxious energy, but it did me good to keep myself busy. And now I'm home, with all windows open (dealing with window optimizing is also adding to the anxiety, tbh), listening to the August 1st fireworks in the background.



31 july 2024

Quiet day today. Mostly I continued watching Extraordinary Attorney Woo (the scene where she sees the whale in the large meeting room made me meeeeeeeeelt), and I played a fair amount of WoW. I'm not convinced by the current event setup: having an event every hour and a half that's essentially done in 10 minutes feels quite punitive :/ but I still did manage to do the three quests. Also I've read these are weekly, not dailies?? To be confirmed tomorrow.


I had a nap at 3PM today, with a 20-minute timer. And I did wake up super refreshed. I think I need to consider naps more seriously.


I dragged my ass (and my feet) to a running equipment shop this afternoon to get Proper Running Shoes, because I'm getting annoyed by the blisters under my foot arches. Got good advice, tried a pair of shoes that gave me the impulse to SPRINT in the middle of the shop when trying them (WTF, I'm not a person who sprints!), and now I have running shoes that go faster, or something. Almost looking forward to trying them.


This evening I treated myself to a trip to the ice cream shop, I got the banana/brownie/caramel and the salted butter caramel ones, both were delicious (as usual) and made me feel better (I was feeling a bit blue.)


Writever

I'm awfully late on the end of Writever, so I'm going to try to finish before going to bed. I won't finish before August (which is in 15 minutes), though, it seems!

Writever July 26th

The word for July 26th was "Play".

"Pff, technology is really getting worse and worse. In my days, things were much more intuitive. This new holoviewer you gave me is full of buttons that are completely opaque to anyone who hasn't spent hours watching the tutorial, because there's not even a written, let alone paper documentation coming in the box. Not to mention, watching the tutorial requires starting the thing; and I don't even know how to do that!

− Have you tried pressing ?"

Writever July 27th

The word for July 27th was "Group".

Space exploration brings some more or less expected issues. Aliens, fine. Stupid behaviors in the vicinity of c, and in wormholes, nothing new.

But the chemists are really unhappy with the discovery of fractional atomic number elements. Worse: they won't fit neatly into groups, because they're all over the place in the periodic table.

The current consensus is to call them "foramenvermites", add a new table below the f-group and be done with it.