I only *thought* I ate pizza…

I use MyFitnessPal to track what I eat (today is the 2,280th day in a row I’ve logged in, in fact) and the phone app allows you to scan the bar codes of packaged food, to conveniently add them to your list of foods consumed.

Tonight we had a Delissio three meat frozen pizza for dinner. This is how MFP scanned it:

Now I’m wondering what I really ate.

The new computer: Installation of everything

First, the bad news: I somehow missed the USB headers and so the two front-mounted USB ports aren’t working. I actually rarely use these, anyway, as I have six USB ports available between the Asus monitor and Seagate back-up drive. I may eventually open the case up to fix this, but in terms of priority, it’s low. Maybe low++.

The good news: On turning on the PC for the first time, it worked. Yay! I got prompted to go into the BIOS because a new CPU had been detected. Once there, I confirmed all hardware was recognized (storage, chassis fans, memory, etc.) and rebooted with the USB drive containing the Windows 10 Pro installation.

The Windows installation went by quickly (really, I think I’ve had games take longer to install) and after answering the five hundred prompts about settings from Microsoft, I logged into my Microsoft account and was good to go. It still feels weird to have my preferred wallpaper already set up.

I installed drivers for the mouse, video card and, well, that’s it. That’s all I needed. I then installed programs I knew I’d be using right away:

  • Firefox (the one time I use Edge is to download Firefox. Well, and view PDFs)
  • Irfanview. Free image viewer/editor I’ve used for a thousand years.
  • Greenshot. Handy screen capture utility. Maybe I’ll try the new snipping tool Windows has built-in at some point, but I’m comfy with Greenshot.
  • Affinity Photo. For when Irfanview is not enough. It’s like Photoshop, but without the rental fee.
  • mIRC. IRC chat client I’ve used for 10,000 years.
  • battle.net. Because I know I’ll eventually play Diablo 3 again.
  • GOG Galaxy. For the games on gog.com I might play.
  • Steam. For the gamews on Steam I might play.
  • iTunes. As much as I dislike the mess of trying to restore my music library, it’s what I need to listen to my music on PC.
  • iCloud. More janky “We gotta have this on the PC I guess” software from Apple I need to access photos and other iCloud junk.
  • Microsoft Office. Mostly for Word and OneNote.

That’s about it so far. I am taking a “do not install until I need it” approach on everything else.

In terms of speed, the new system has some perhaps surprising results. Here’s a look at how the Geekbench 4 results compare between it, the old PC (2013), MacBook Pro (2016) and the Mac mini (2018):

As you can see, the single core score beats the MBP, as expected, but it only edges the 4th general Haswell CPU in my old PC, and actually comes in a bit behind the Mac mini.

On the other hand, the multi-core performance demolishes the old PC and is ahead of the Mac mini, as well. The thought of replacing the CPU with a more powerful one gives me the cold sweats.

So far everything feels snappy and fast and in some ways it’s nice to have a stripped-down set of applications. I’ll resist adding stuff just because, but–you know, as I type this, I remembered another one I need: Calibre. But apart from Calibre, I’m holding off until I actually have a need. No more impulsive installs, ever! I swear.

For now.

Also, the AMD Ryzen 7 CPU has a bright red LED that circles the HSF. It’s weird and somehow I missed that it features this (it is mentioned on the retail box). So my new PC is partially blinged out, despite my best efforts to prevent it.

Also also I’m resisting the urge to get a second SSD already, because only having a single drive for now irrationally makes me feel like I’m going to run out of space any minute.

My new PC is built

Built but not actually connected to anything. For the moment it is perfect. And perfectly quiet.

I assembled the parts this evening and went about the task of putting the guts into the mini-tower case I had picked. As with my current PC, I picked every component on this one, then assembled it myself.

The total time of assembly was bout three and a half hours, which was longer than anticipated. I expected this to be quicker and easier than the mini-ITX system I built five years ago. Wrong again!

The points where I had issues:

  • Installing the heatsink/fan combo. This should be easy, as it’s just screwing in four screws to a plate mounted under the motherboard. But first I had to remove brackets for an alternate design. That was easy. Getting the four spring-loaded screws to screw in was not. I had to carefully balance each screw, lest the other side of the HSF suddenly pop up. This happened a lot. I finally got all four screws in when I realized I had to exert a certain amount of force on the HSF to keep it level, so it wouldn’t pop up. This took maybe 20-25 minutes alone. I can say with full confidence this is something I never want to do again.
  • Installing the cables to the power supply. Easy in theory, but threading them from the motherboard and down to the PSU “shroud” proved difficult, as there is a drive cage mounted next to the PSU. I had to unscrew the PSU assembly and pull it partly out to get the cables connected.
  • Plugging in the headers for Power LED, etc. These are labeled on the motherboard, but are virtually impossible to read because they are tiny and/or partly hidden by other components. I had to take several pictures and examine them closely to get everything connected. I think I got it right. Maybe.

These three things were, at times, maddening. And I haven’t even mentioned the IO shield, that infernal piece of aluminum that goes into a spot on the back of the case, and is designed to pop out 20 times before you can actually get it to stay in place. Despite these issues—which have convinced me to never build my own PC again—some aspects of the build were easy:

  • RAM was a simple case of snapping in the modules, same as it’s ever been.
  • The SSD is an M.2 drive, about the size of a stick of gum. It plugs directly into the motherboard and uses one tiny screw and support to keep it fastened in place. No power cables, no SATA cables, that’s it!
  • The video card went in place quite easily. This is often the trickiest thing to get in, but the case had plenty of room for it.

As I write this it is 11:48 p.m. and I have powered off my current PC. I am not keen on hooking up the new PC yet. I’m not ready to go through the ritual of installing Windows. I’m even less ready to deal with inevitable BIOS errors, the video card not working and whatever else may go wrong.

I do not have a good feeling about this.

But for now, the PC is built and it is ready.

I am not.

But maybe tomorrow.

Book review: Surviving Death

Surviving Death: Evidence of the Afterlife

Surviving Death: Evidence of the Afterlife by Leslie Kean

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I suspect a lot of people will have one of two reactions on reading this book. They’ll either roll their eyes and put it down, dismissing it as a bunch of non-scientific hooey, or they’ll allow themselves to admit that definitive evidence may be ever-elusive, but that Kean presents a strong set of circumstantial evidence to suggest that consciousness can and does exist outside of the human body, and can therefore exist after death.

Kean breaks the book into sections and devotes chapters to letting direct witnesses or participants tell their stories in their own words, ranging from classic out-of-body experiences. My favorite is a woman in hospital who floated around and outside the building while suffering cardiac arrest, spotting a blue tennis shoe out of sight on a ledge. A medical social worker later looks for and finds the shoe, which precisely matches the description the patient offered. This story is also a good example of the evidence Kean provides. While you can come up with ways the story might be faked–the patient and social worker may have conspired together, the patient may have planted the shoe herself before her hospital stay–they all seem highly implausible, but not quite impossible, always leaving some room for doubt for the skeptical.

Kean devotes further chapters to past life experiences, “actual death” experiences where the patient is clinically dead for a period of time, and a large part of the book to communicating with the dead through mediums and seances. Kean ends up inserting herself into the story after attending several seances in which she believes she is contacted by two spirits, those of her brother and Budd Hopkins, the UFO investigator, with whom she was acquainted. She also sees physical manifestations of objects like human hands forming out of ectoplasm. If it sounds weird, it’s because it is weird.

Kean admits as much while asserting that she always remained analytical, taking notes and doing all she could to establish the events were authentic and happened as she recollected.

The underlying thesis is that there exists two things we can’t really see or even prove. The first is psi energy–the ability to do things like move objects through thought alone (yes, just like Carrie, but with less burning-down-the-high-school), and the second is that each person has a consciousness or what some might call the soul, that resides within our brains and bodies, but is not bound to them, so that when we die, this essence or soul is released and joins others in another dimension that doesn’t quite overlap ours. It’s established that those in this other dimension cannot easily communicate with us, because they exist outside of regular physical space. But the other dimension is very groovy and peaceful and wonderful, and is why virtually everyone having a near-death or out-of-body experience loses their fear of death.

A good part of the book is spent on various observers debating whether the experiences are created by discarnates (spirits) or through the psychic energy of those who report seeing them. It is notable that those having this debate are only arguing between the two possibilities, not that the phenomenon is fake or staged in any way.

The evidence presented is about as good as can be expected and Kean comes down on the side suggesting the evidence points toward survival (life after death) rather than just being projections made by the living. I found few instances where I thought, “Yeah, but…” in the many examples provided, and this is a credit to Kean’s research and thoroughness.

It’s still all very weird, though.

I went into reading Surviving Death with an open mind, and I remain the same after. I can’t say I “believe” as I haven’t seen any of the things Kean documents, but I also can’t deny that any of it might be possible. I’ve long felt that the world we see and the world that is are two vastly different things, that we only understand a small sliver of what we consider reality. I find this intimidating, but also exciting. And in the end (no pun intended–well, maybe a little), the idea that death–something none of us can avoid–is nothing to fear, but rather something to embrace when it comes, is a welcome one, particularly in western culture where death is treated as something terrible. Myself, I want a wake, not a funeral, and if I am still around in some form post-death I would absolutely delight in freaking out any surviving friends by messing with them. In a good-natured way, of course.

I did feel that the final section on mediums and seances could have been trimmed a bit, as the material starts to feel same-y as Kean documents various mediums and episodes, but it’s a minor criticism.

If you are intrigued by the idea of the consciousness surviving outside the living body, and of life only being one part of the human experience, Surviving Death is easy to recommend.

View all my reviews

In the shallow end of the pool

I am a shallow person.

Funny cat videos amuse me greatly.

I can go to one of those auto-correct sites that are comprised of largely fake text message conversations and find myself laughing loudly, even as I acknowledge the fakeness therein.

I can become impatient with stories that trade heavily in metaphor. I resist reading more Harlan Ellison. I want my stories served up straight, without riddles. I don’t mind thinking, but I don’t want to think hard.

I’m exaggerating a bit for effect here. I don’t really mind metaphors. I finally got around to watching the film adaption of Annihilation (I read the book in August of last year) and it is steeped in metaphors. Some are explained rather plainly, others are left to the audience to pull together. And I get why this movie was not a big hit–it demands too much of those watching it. People don’t want to actively think while sitting in a movie theater while holding a $10 bucket of popcorn between their legs. They want action, romance, comedy and whatever else to be doled out quickly, frequently, and without complication. Annihilation often makes you want to rewind to confirm if you are putting the pieces together correctly (this is awkward in a theater, as the projectionist and other audience members are likely to object to your whims).

In going back to a spoiler thread started on Broken Forum discussing the film, I enjoyed everyone’s guesses and theories on what happened, and appreciated even more what people thought everything meant. The video below was linked and it’s a terrific companion piece to the film, highlighting how the right question isn’t, “Did aliens do it?” but what do the events in the film say about the characters, how are they changed, what does it say about us, our world?

Let me return to how I am a shallow person.

I could never write a novel like Annihilation. I could never write a screenplay for a movie like Annihilation. Why? Because my skill with metaphor, my ability to tease out deeper meanings is limited. Was it my upbringing? Is my brain too small? Did my teachers go soft on me? Are cats just so naturally adorable that they short-circuit my intellect? I don’t know. But I do know that any number of stories I write that attempt to say something more profound than ACTION SCENE and BIG LAUGH tend to make me cringe when I re-read them.

I do better now than when I was young, though. There is some seriously overwrought stuff that I wrote in my teens (I mean, who doesn’t write seriously overwrought stuff in their teens? Unless you spent your teens in juvenile or otherwise not actually writing). As a (much) older adult, I can rein in the worst excesses, but my stories are still pretty straightforward:

  • Man swaps bodies with cat
  • Superheroes clumsily save the world from a world-destroying asteroid
  • Man vows to lose weight and is helped by a candy bar-eating magic gnome

Okay, that last one contains a bit of metaphor. But it ain’t subtle.

I guess in writing about my shallowness, there is the idea that is must somehow bother me. And in a little way it does, but I am only actively reminded about how it bothers me after seeing films like Annihilation, and analyses like the one above that explain all the clever, layered things that are presented. Then I feel dumb for not quite fully understanding them or worse, missing these clever things entirely.

I’m not going to make a New Year resolution to write deeper stories or go on a metaphorpalooza, mind you. Frankly, just doing more actual writing would be good enough for now.

And with that, I conclude this post. It’s a metaphor for being lazy, see? Or something.

My in-depth review of Games of Thrones, Seasons 1 to whatever

Okay, I lied. I haven’t watched any episodes of Game of Thrones, although thanks to its perpetual presence in all forms of media–especially now in its last season–it feels like I have.

I have also not read any of the books.

I have seen HBO timidly suggest that Trump (still not kidnapped by Bigfoot) not use Game of Thrones typography and imagery for political purposes. Trump seems more interested in continuing to debase the presidency of the United States, though. Winter is coming indeed.

Instead, let me use this to briefly highlight one of the weird aspects of online media. Most of the sites I read are primarily focused on tech, but they all include reviews of books, TV shows and movies now, because they have broadened their scope (probably to stay competitive with everyone else broadening their scope). The effect of this is I see a lot of GoT coverage without even looking for it.

And it is weird. It is weird–and I point out that this weird thing is not limited to GoT, it’s just the most prominent example out there–because in addition to providing the usual reviews or previews of the show, they are also providing analysis. Here are some headlines from the articles:

“There’s a major flaw in Winterfell’s battle strategy on Game of Thrones”

“Here’s why Sansa and Theon’s reunion was so emotional”

“Tormund Giantsbane’s ridiculous origin story is different in the Game of Thrones books”

“Who had the most merciful death on Game of Thrones? Science has an answer”

It seems like an attempt at water cooler-style conversation, just aimed at many thousands of readers instead of a couple of co-workers. Some of the topics are nerdy. Some delve into the minutia of obsessive fans that carefully examine every element of something they like. And it all seems weird to me, because this is the kind of conversation that nerdy friends would have, not something you’d read about in an online tech news publication. Maybe it’s just me drifting ever-closer to the “old man yells at cloud” phase. Maybe this is perfectly fine because you can now share your nerdy conversations with thousands of others in the comments of these stories.

Maybe nerdism (?) is something unlike riding a bike, where you can actually lose your nerdiness over time if you don’t keep nerding it up.

Maybe I’ve used the word “nerd” too many times already.

I still think this is weird.

Now I’m off to read a cheap one-off horror novel I found on Bookbub. I’ll write a review and no one will even know (It’s okay, my social media presence is something I cultivate as well as an actual garden, which is to say not at all), and my nerdity will decline just that much more. And I’ll start hiking my pants up to my nipples for no discernible reason.

Run 606: Slower, stinkier

Run 606
Average pace: 6:12/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 2:14 pm
Distance: 5:02 km
Time: 31:02
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 16ºC
Humidity: 53%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 162
Weight: 168.1 pounds
Total distance to date: 4610 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 2, iPhone 8

The conditions for today’s run were different in a number of ways compared to last week’s:

  • warmer (16º vs 9º)
  • windier (it was a tad breezy at times)
  • at the lake running clockwise (ostensibly harder than clockwise) vs. running the river (which is inarguably easier)

I headed out and was pleased by a decent pace on the walk to the lake. I was less pleased by having to pee twice before starting the run, using every available public toilet along the way (which was both of them). I had decided ahead of time to run counter-clockwise, but this time I started the run on the south side of the dam, at the official 0K marker.

I headed off and at first it felt like I was running too hard and I kept pulling back, but it still felt hard. When I finished and saw the average pace of 6:12/km, I was not surprised–it nearly matches my previous run at the lake. The total run time is only separated by a mere second. It always creeps me out a little when that happens. How can I be that incredibly consistent from one run to the next over a distance of five km? Weird, I say.

Because I felt like I was working harder, I was also not surprised to see my BPM up a bit, but only a bit, and well below the threshold I prefer staying away from.

The big surprise came when I looked at the splits:

KmPace
16:14
26:33
36:24
45:53
55:57

As you can see, I was doing the opposite of pushing to hard at the start, as I was muddling along at a decidedly average pace if 6:14/km. I did succeed in slowing down, though. as I dropped to a slug-like 6:33 in the next km. I recall feeling especially slow right around the midway point of the run before finally finding something of a second wind, or maybe just a moderate second breeze.

Whatever it was, it allowed me to pick up the pace, so my last few km were actually run at a decent pace. But by the end I was tired. I spent the first km after the run recovering and thinking about how much more my knees were aching compared to most runs (they seem no worse for wear now). After that one km of recovery, though, I ended up finding a new reserve of energy and managed ro run/walk the rest of the way around the lake. Overall, I’m not thrilled with the result, but I’m not really upset, either. It felt harder than it should have, but maybe the uptick in temperature was enough to drag on me.

The trail was quite busy. I didn’t see too many runners going by (and none dealt me the psychological blow of sprinting past me from behind), but one was jogging with a German Shepherd on a leash and I thought it was cute and then the dog barked at me–once–as I passed by and I no longer found it cute.

There were multiple cyclists out, all of them wearing that “I’m pretending I don’t know I shouldn’t be riding here when I totally know I shouldn’t be riding here” look. You fool no one, naughty cyclists!

The stinky part is in reference to the skunk cabbage, which is nearing peak skunk cabbage aroma. It is not a delicate bouquet.

Fortunately, despite the people, dogs, cyclists and geese, there were no near-collisions or fancy dipsy-doodling required to navigate around anyone. The section near the fields was festooned with several large puddles, and these did require a bit of coordinated footwork to avoid getting soaked from the ankles down. If they do any resurfacing on the trails this year, I hope they do this section first, even if I’d really like to see all the tree roots on the Cottonwood trail covered up. At least that trail never gets submerged.

I’m tentatively planning on another run on Monday, as it’s a holiday, but I will see what my knees say (“Hell no” or “Well…okay” seem the likeliest responses) before deciding. Also, if it’s pouring rain I may lean toward the “Hell no” even before consulting the knees.

Fun fact: I set a new Move record on my Apple Watch today, with 1840 calories burned (it’s up to 1912 as I write this):