kaizen
what's been floating my boat lately:
  • family time

    • "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."
    -Hitler-
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
    -Albert Einstein-

    6/24/26 (16:05)

  • Pretty busy again, so that's pretty good. Better than the alternative. Been mostly treading water lately and that's not very exciting or interesting.
  • "“The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations” - Adam Smith
  • Most car mechanics I have encountered just go by the playbook. Basically, there is a book or software that gives mechanics a set order of troubleshooting that they should do in order to fix any given problem. If the OBD tool scans your car and it says there's a problem with the timing then the software will tell the mechanic to check the timing belt sensor and the belt tension. After that it will tell the mechanic to check for issues with the spark plugs, etc. The mechanic turns off his brain and just follows the playbook. In the old days, this wasn't the case. Perhaps the playbook is good for 80 or even 90% of problems, but there is some percentage of problems that the playbook doesn't help with and that requires old school troubleshooting and (gasp) using your brain. Understanding how a car works and (hopefully) knowing specific cars, which have tendencies of their own. For example, certain 3V Ford engines are known to have timing chain in part because the guides they used are plastic. Other cars are known to have other issues. Hopefully your mechanic knows your car and knows about those issues. Hopefully he can use his brain and experience to solve things when the playbook doesn't have the answer. But finding that kind of person is increasingly difficult.
  • My kids the kind of charmed life I wish I could have lived. Their parents are together and relatively happy together and on their own. They live in a very walkable area and have the freedom to generally go where they want. They live within a 15 minute walk of mini golf, an arcade, a movie theater, and within a 15 minute bike of school, the beach, several parks, and a bowling alley. They get to eat out a lot (which I always loved - probably because it was so rare) and get more treats than they probably should. They have grandparents around and see them on a regular basis. During summer they get a lot of free time to bake and listen to music and hang out with friends and walk to the move theater, etc. On occasion they go with me to work. Maybe they don't love that, but I think they will like it more in retrospect.
  • Every once in a while you'll see the bias behind different media outlets. They will let slip how they actually feel. It seems like this is more acceptable now. I actually prefer the old paradigm where news outlets and anchors were supposed to keep up the artifice of objectivity. Even though we knew that all the anchors had opinions of their own, their goal was to mask it to the public as much as possible. Now the dominant thinking is that everyone has a bias and maybe it should even be stated up front. So, the bias leaks out and no one cares. A while back the NYT podcast said that Diane Feinstein was suffering from mental decline, but that she was still "voting with the Democrats correctly on the issues." The implication is two fold - the Democrats are correct and voting with Democrats makes you correct. There are a lot of examples like this. You'll see what the anchors respond to, what they ask about, how they view things...it all reveals a clear bias. Fox News is of course the worst, but they all have gone down the path of asking leading questions towards their bias. It's painfully obvious for anyone who pays attention.
  • Watched Obession the other day. Been watching more movies lately, which is nice. Backrooms was pretty good. Disclosure Day was fun. But Obsession was great and a definite must watch for horror fans. Most unsettling movie I've seen in a long time.
  • 911 should be answered by AI. Same for 311 (non emergency line for reporting issues like abandoned cars, etc.). It would need to be done well and have the ability to quickly transfer to a live person. You don't want to fuck around. But, being answered immediately by a computer is better than not being answered for minutes (which has been the case in Oakland in the past). Probably 75% of calls could easily be handled by AI to dispatch fire trucks, reroute non-emergency calls, dispatch ambulances when it understands someone has had a heart attack, etc. It should also tag along while the call is going on and offer help to the operator. 1 click dispatching and quickly filling out information like "it's the red house at the end of the cul de sac" or whatever pertinent information first responders need. I listen to a lot of 911 calls on true crime podcasts, etc. and another thing I wish it could do would be to help murderers incriminate themselves. Sometimes you'll get a murderer who calls up and says something like "yeah I just stabbed my wife." The operator is usually taken aback and asks about where she is and says that the ambulance is on the way, etc. But AI could be trained to ask questions like "did you take any medication today?" "did she attack you?" and whatever other questions a prosecutor would want asked in that situation. It's a good time to gather information and, from the calls I've heard, it's usually time that's wasted.
  • I think we're really doing a disservice to the society and its individuals to not encourage kids to work more. We see it as a victory to have child labor laws, and I think it makes sense in a lot of situations. But, who do you think does better in life - the kids who help their parents out at the family restaurant every night or the kids who have extra soccer practice after school? Look at workforce participation rates for 16-19 year olds. When I was born it was 59.2%. Today it's 35.7%.



    • 6/9/26 (15:03)
  • Went to Rasputin/Anastasia's the other day as part of Zoe's birthday. Got a bunch of used clothes, CDs, and DVDs all for about $75. Good score. Great day with the family. She's officially 13 now. Only 5 more years of days like that and after that I'll be lucky to have 1 or 2 a year. Hopefully they live near us after they go away for college or whatever.
  • If I tell a group of women that men are more selfish, less likely to participate in civic engagement, less likely to volunteer, less likely to have a good work-life balance, less likely to participate in parenting, etc. this group of women would likely cheer me on for telling the truth and taking men to task. However, if I pointed out that all those things have a trade off that allows them to spend more time at work (and thus get paid more), they would likely not be very happy with me anymore. If men are judged more on their earnings than looks, parenting, work-life balance, etc. doesn't it make sense that they would seek to optimize that?
  • The modern dialectic that this generation is learning is all about oppressor vs. oppressed. It's how they seem to be taught to understand everything in life. It's no wonder, then, that they are the more likely to be anti-Semitic than the older generations. They see Jews doing well all around them, they see Israel as having the military power and that's really all they need to know. Success proves that they are oppressors.
  • It's a nice way of viewing the world because it's very simple and applies across multiple situations. You don't need to know much - you just need to see who is on the losing end of things and you know what side to take. If there's a problem in society, just blame the "oppressor group" and you'll be right (according to the doctrine). Easy scapegoat.
  • On the political right they have different scapegoats. Their scapegoat lately is liberals and immigrants. Their view lately seems to be that everything was great before and it's all fucked up now.
  • I've heard from a few people lately that murdering Trump wouldn't be such a bad thing. This came after the most recent oddball assassination attempt. I had to explain to these people that, while you may not like him, there are several reasons why rooting for his murder is a really bad thing. So here it is in case you might be thinking the same thing:
  • High level:
  • You don't want to advocate for murder of any kind. Murder is bad all around. It's morally reprehensible.
  • You don't want to advocate for political murder. It's extremely destabilizing socially and politically. It will likely lead to more political murders and you likely won't like the results.
  • More specifically:
  • You don't want JD Vance as president. He's younger and smarter and could be worse in some ways that are yet to be seen.
  • You don't want Trump to be a generational martyr.
  • If you don't like yourself then just take a pill or get surgery. This is the American solution. Some people see that and understand what I'm saying and shake their head at how pathetic our society is. Some of those people, though, would defend someone born with a vagina (formerly called a female) who feels like a man (whatever that feels like) and taking pills so they can grow a mustache (sorta) and cut their breasts off. They also don't see anything incongruous with that indictment of a lazy and hopeless society on one hand, and the decision to do exactly the same thing over their gender expression (whatever that is) on the other hand. Strange society we're living in.
  • GLP-1s are taken by about 8% of Americans, apparently. We'll see what the long-term consequences of this is, but it's probably worth the tradeoff for the 40% of Americans who are obese (9% are severely obese).
  • What's the first word of your obituary going to be? Well, if you're a well known advocate for certain issues then it usually is something about your race, gender, etc. For example, there's a walk of fame type thing in the Castro district and they have plaques of various people who were activists of various kinds. Almost every one of them had the first word as: Arab or Gay or Trans or Lesbian, etc. So, it would say "Arab lesbian who fought for human rights, etc." or "Trans activist who helped change laws, etc." I only saw one of them that didn't adopt this structure. I'd like to think that if I was one of these people I would want it to be structured more like this: "staunch advocate for the rights of blah blah blah." Instead of "white man who favored vaginas over penises, who also did some things to help yada yada yada."
  • Actually, fuck it, I hearby declare that I want my tombstone to read "white man who preferred vagina over penis in the bedroom. Also had some kids and a business or whatever, but mostly you should be aware of the fact that he was white and liked vagina."
  • I asked Claude AI about toxic masculinity and here's what it came up with. I think it nailed it.
  • A few categories with examples:

    • **Emotional suppression**- "Men don't cry" / refusing to seek help for mental health- Bottling up pain until it explodes as anger
    **Dominance and control**- Needing to "win" every argument or situation- Controlling a partner's finances, friends, or movements
    **Aggression as default**- Responding to disrespect or embarrassment with violence- Road rage, bar fights — physical assertion of status
    **Sexual entitlement**- Treating women as conquests or objects rather than people- Pressuring partners, ignoring "no"
    **Homophobia / policing masculinity**- Bullying men who don't conform to tough-guy norms- "That's gay" as an insult — enforcing rigid gender performance
    **Providing/stoicism to a fault**- Refusing to admit financial struggle or ask for help- Working yourself to death rather than showing vulnerability
    **Bravado over safety**- Not wearing seatbelts, not going to the doctor, taking reckless risks to appear tough
    ---
    Worth noting: the term is specifically about *toxic* expressions of masculinity — not masculinity itself. The debate around the phrase is largely about whether it unfairly pathologizes normal male traits, which is why some prefer terms like **"male disposability"** or **"rigid gender roles"** to describe the same phenomena.
  • Then I asked it about toxic feminity, and I think it nailed it again.

    • Parallel structure to toxic masculinity — these are *toxic expressions* of femininity, not femininity itself:
    **Weaponized vulnerability**- Playing the victim to avoid accountability- Using tears or fragility to manipulate outcomes- "I can't believe you'd say that to me" as a deflection tactic
    **Indirect aggression**- Gossip, social exclusion, reputation destruction instead of direct confrontation- Mean Girls-style relational cruelty — freezing people out, whisper campaigns
    **Emotional manipulation**- Guilt-tripping, silent treatment, withholding affection as punishment- "Fine" / "nothing's wrong" — weaponized passivity
    **Competitive self-victimhood**- Who suffered more, who has it harder — suffering as social currency
    **Policing other women**- Shaming women who are "too sexual" or "not sexual enough"- Tearing down women who don't conform to feminine norms (internalized misogyny)
    **Devouring Mother** - Smothering love as control- Sacrificial martyrdom used as leverage — "everything I did for you"
    **Validation-seeking to a fault**- Identity entirely dependent on being needed, desired, or approved of
    ---
    It's a less culturally discussed concept than toxic masculinity, partly because these behaviors are often socially rewarded or invisible as "just how women are." The honest version of feminism tends to engage with it; the defensive version avoids it.


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