Bertrand Russell's 10 rules for thinking clearly

Lifted from the BoingBoing article I read earlier today:

The rules:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to produce belief by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even when truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

And now it's 2026

So what do you have for us, 2026?

Improvements over the last few dumpster fire years?

Or more of the same?

Looking back on 2025

Upon reflection, I have a few thoughts on 2025.

Fuck AI.

Tech bros can fuck the hell off.

Fuck the "K-shaped" economy.

Fuck this shitty job market.

Fuck AI recruiters. Yes, that's a thing now.

Fuck this not-very-slow implosion of the environment.

I could say a lot about current US politics, but there's only so many ways I can say "Fuck [x]" before getting flagged by someone for the gulags when they start being a thing in a year or two.

Fuck the return of measles and other diseases.

Fuck anti-vaxxers and fucking morons who refuse to accept science.



All-in-all, fuck 2025. It's lived up to the other years of this dumpster fire of a decade and it can go fuck itself.

Pondering 2025

Yeah, so it's 2025

I have no idea what to expect, based on the last four years or so.

Okay, I have an idea what to expect, but not sure what to say without sounding... you know what? Fuck it. I don't care.

2025, try not to be a dumpster fire, okay? I expect you'll be one anyway, but try to be less of one.

Won't happen, but it's worth a try.

2024 can go f*** itself

As the subject line says: fuck 2024

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

And fuck 2023

2023 can go f*** itself

The blog title expresses my sentiments regarding 2023 well enough.

This year has been a shitshow.

I was one of the waves of tech layoffs early in 2023. Finding new work has been... challenging... amid the ocean of other people in the same situation.

I sustained several injuries from hobbies. None serious, but all-together, they've been problematic.

Several friends died over the course of the year. Each one was a shock.

And the capper was when my father passed away.

Gotta say I'm still struggling with that one. There's a 'Dad-sized' hole in my life that I can't quite figure out how to process.

In the interests of fairness, it hasn't all been bad. The layoff meant I could spend time with my father before his passing, and that worked out remarkably well. I've also been able to help out family in the midst of all this, which has also been nice.

And I can't recall the last time I've managed to get so much sleep!

The year's been a constant source of anxiety, from the personal to just watching the news and seeing the wars and the violent rhetoric and the rise of - let's be honest here - nazi-like sentiments in my homeland.

Fucking shitshow all around.

I will not look back on 2023 with any fondness. If 2023 were a person, I'd be tap dancing on its face until it stopped being fun. And I think I'd get a lot of fun out of that.

I certainly hope 2024 is better (though the jury duty summons I got suggests that won't be the case... that's almost funny, really).

So, as I raise a glass... fuck you, 2023. Fuck you and good riddence.

Ah, that felt good.

For anyone reading, I hope the coming year brings you good fortune, good health, and all the good things.

2023

About six months in, I very much dislike 2023.

That is all.

It's May, it's May, the merry month of May

No idea why "Camelot" popped into my head, but there it is. The month's more than half-over and the song's been lurking in my brain on-and-off for about a week now. It's a relief to get it out of my system. You're welcome.

Thoughts as April winds down

It's going to be May tomorrow. Time truly flies.

2023 so far has been four months of allergies with a job layoff added, just for shits and giggles.

I've found a few distractions as I hunt for new employment by watching a few shows in streaming, but honestly most of the stuff I've watched has been kinda crappy. Even season three of "The Mandalorian" was kind of disappointing. Oh, it was tons better than "The Book of Boba Fett", but once you've included space-vespas in a show, everything is going to look better.

I'm thinking I'm going to ditch Disney+ anyway. Everything Disney seems to touch is kinda shitty and I'm a bit tired of it.

I've discovered a new author I like, which has been a little ray of sunshine in this shitshow of a year. Ryan Cahill, who authors a fantasy series known as "The Bound and the Broken", is quite delightful. I'm on book three of his series so far (not counting novellas) and am very much enjoying his stuff.

Too bad I'll be done soon and out of good authors to read.

On the plus side, I've taken advantage of my unexpected free time to sort out a few things (like my previously-mentioned trip to the hazardous waste disposal dump). It feels weird not to be working. Unnatural, somehow. Though I do have to say, it's nice to be able to sleep in everyday.

Adventures in Hazardous Waste Disposal

I have no idea how long I was holding on to those propane canisters.

Since before the pandemic, certainly.

I haven't used them for my BBQ in years. My landlord came down hard on all residents who had BBQs on their balconies, so I moved mine into the common area. During the pandemic and the height of the fire season, some twat got on the property and decided to use my BBQ to cook up a steak during a red flag day. After I got his ass arrested, I got rid of the BBQ. I had the propane canisters stored away until I could figure out what to do with them.

In a bought of housecleaning, I recently assembled a pile of things I need to get rid of that need special treatment. Used batteries, fluorescent bulbs, an old and dead generator, an old microwave, a very old computer monitor, and, of course, those propane canisters.

So I investigated my county's options for hazardous waste disposal. There are several options, but none exactly close and convenient to where I live. So I made an appointment and set aside some time to deal with this.

So here I am, my car's trunk filled with flammable crap, driving in heavier-than-I'd-like traffic to a shitty part of a local city, following very dubious directions, to get rid of this shit.

I swear I thought that truck was going to rearend me and blow me up. The potholes in the fucking roads were like bomb craters. I got lost twice finding the goddamn place.

I've never felt so relieved to have all that shit taken out of my car's trunk. I'm pretty sure I'll need an alignment done on my car after driving those shitty roads, but it was worth it just to have that crap off my hands.

Next time, I go to a different drop-off, though.

Wow, March is almost over already?

I can't believe we're reaching the end of March already!

2023 has been a bit of a shitshow, all told. It's certainly had the side effect of having time blaze on by.

Let's see... what's going on? I'm enjoying season three of "The Mandalorian". I tried watching "Andor", but I really couldn't get into it. I'm also making my way through "Lucifer". It's enjoyable, though a bit predictable. I tried to watch "The Witcher: Blood Origin" and I might still get through it, but it's really terrible. It's not Sapkowski's work, but more like someone at Netflix wanted to do a show about their D&D campaign and had to call it a "Witcher" spin-off so as not to get into a licensing tiff with Wizards of the Coast.

Hilarious, really.

I read somewhere that the "Willow" series got canceled. Can't say that shocks me at all

Okay, yeah. All I'm doing is wingeing on about streaming shows. I could get huffy about real life - and there's lots to get huffy about - but honestly, why bother? The real world is just a hot fucking mess and that's not changing anytime soon. Easier to get snarky about trivial bullshit like entertainment shows.

Hello 2023

It's 2023. We've a break in the rain. The sun is shining. The birds are singing (or whatever crows call the sound they make). It's chilly, but not unpleasantly so. Places that serve booze are open.

A promising start to the year.

Farewell to 2022

Huh. It's New Year's Eve. How did that happen?

Well, I can't say I'm sorry to see 2022 go into the rear view mirror. As years go, it's certainly had its moments. Sure, it wasn't the complete shitshow dumpster fires that 2020 and 2021 were, but that's a low bar.

I hope 2023 is an improvement. The rise of yet another COVID strain, the lunatic facists in government, wars, and every other damn thing continue to worry. Could be worse, I suppose.

However it is, whatever you believe, worship, or honor, I wish you a Happy New Year and best wishes in the next.

Happy Autumnal Equinox

So begins the Fall.

Muahahahahaha!

Stranger Things - the best 80s nostalgia

I just finished watching season 4 of "Stranger Things" and it left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling of weird nostalgia for the 80s (a decade I didn't especially enjoy when I lived through it).

I gather that Season 5 will conclude the series, though spin-offs are apparently still on the table. I hope that one of those spin-offs have Dustin and Steve off doing side adventures, 'cause those two are hilariously-awesome. I'd also take good time to watch the adventures of Max and Eleven doing whatever those two feel like doing. They should bring in Erika Sinclair in for maximum awesome, though.

All told, I have a number of hopes for season five of the show:

• More Max being awesome. I've decided that Sadie Sink's portrayal of Max Mayfield has made her my favorite character.
• More Steve and Dustin. For the most part, I'm inclined to think the male characters of "Stranger Things" get the short end of the stick in terms of meaty roles, but Joe Keery and Gaten Matarazzo have been given a gift from the writers with Steve Harrington and Dustin Henderson.
• Give Maya Hawke's Robin Buckley a happy ending. Her character rocks. It's the 80s and not a good time for a girl to come out of the closet, so indulge in fantasy and give her a happy time, eh?
• I'm rooting for Caleb McLaughlin's Lucas Sinclair and Sadie Sink's Max Mayfield, but for the love of Cthulhu, I wish the writers woudl give McLaughlin more to do.
• On the topic of characters who need more to do... good lord. Finn Wolfhard's Mike Wheeler, Noah Schnapp's Will Byers, and Charlie Heaton's Jonathan Byers were nothing more than pointless oxygen consuption and wasted screen time in the last two seasons. I really hope the writers can come up with something for these characters to do that's useful. It was painful to watch Will Byers do his pining over Mike and it did little to move the plot forward. Jonathan Byers did exactly nothing of use in the season other than be a sort of love-interest for Natalia Dyer's Nancy Wheeler (who is SO FAR out of his league it's painful). And, while I feel bad for Finn Wolfhard. The character of Mike Wheeler has been sidelined to the point of being... uh... pointless for the last two seasons. The writers really need to think of something for the character to do other than be "heart".

I feel sad for the Hawkins, Indiana tourist board.

Deconstruction of Heroes - a really annoying trend

I found it was really getting to me when Steven Moffatt took over "Doctor Who".

"Doctor Who" had transitioned from the Russell T. Davies reboot to Moffatt, who had written some of the best, and most haunting, episodes during the Davies tenure.

Under Davies, there was a fair amount of deconstruction of the Doctor's character and personality. A lot of trying to get into the character's head and part the mystery, but for some reason, I didn't find it too much. Then Moffatt stepped in and just kept going bonkers with incomprehensible story arcs that just orbited the Doctor in a bonkers fashion. And he went further in trying to deconstruct the character and break apart all the mystery that made the Doctor so interesting. He even invented an entire incarnation (the "War Doctor") to go nuts on the mythology.

I would up giving up on the show after a while. I've read a bit about what Chris Chibnall has done for the show's mythology and... no regrets from walking away.



Then Rogue One: A Star Wars Story came out.

I have to admit, I didn't think Rogue One was a bad story, exactly. It was just... unnecessary. I honestly didn't need an entire rambling caper telling me how the Rebels got the plans to the Death Star. And having watched the movie, with the really insanely contrived plot twists, it didn't do the story any favors, imho.



Then came the Han Solo movie. I watched a trailer and... nope. I really didn't need an entire movie trying to pidgeonhole in all of Han's backstory so we could see the Kessel Run and how he won the Millennium Falcon. Honestly, that much naked Disney greed to milk more and more out of the fanbase was too much for me.



Around the same time, I think Rian Johnson's The Force Awakens came out and we got treated to PTSD Luke Skywalker, with his addiction to alien blue milk, fresh from the alien teat.

Wow. Yeah.

Watching the heroic Jedi from Return of the Jedi turned into a broken old man with a milk fetish was way over-the-line. I was somewhat annoyed that Abrams had turned Han and Leia into a divorced couple, with Han a scrounger on the run, but given the plot thread of killing off Han, it seemed pointless to get irriated. Turning Luke into an attempted child-murderer and weirdo hermit was just way too much.

I was done with Star Wars at that point.



"The Mandalorian" came along and, I gotta admit, I found myself hooked on the franchise again. Then they did "The Book of Boba Fett" and... really? I mean, making the cool character from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi return was... okay, I guess? Turning him into a weirdly-broken, weak, and kind of pathetic wanna-be sheriff/boss on Tatooine was really unnecessary. If the show hadn't jumped to the Mandalorian for a bit, I'd have written the whole thing off as a waste of time.



And now we've got "Obi-Wan Kenobi".

So, honestly, I never saw a point to telling a story of Obi-Wan's time in exile. There was no way he was doing anything especially-noteworthy during his time as a desert hermit, right?

I'll admit, what they've got going is somewhat-intriguing. A side-quest to rescue young Leia is intriguing. It's unclear if she knows who he is and the attention paid to some details has been fun, but honestly I really don't need to see broken Ben Kenobi, cowering in the shadows. And there's a lot of that, three episodes in.



This trend to take heroic characters from various series and put them through some kind of blender to squeeze some kind of drama from their past tales - stories told after the character's performed their main heroic arc - is demeaning to the character and kinda lazy storytelling. It's a really irritating trend, and I really wish it would stop.

I'm enjoying parts of "Obi-Wan Kenobi". I have to admit, I like the new villain characters. The girl playing young Leia is awesome. Bringing back Owen Lars was well-done. I'm ambivalent about the return of Darth Vader. Seems kind of pandering, but I suppose the entire series is that.

So long 2021

Another year bites the dust.

I can't say 2021 was all that terribly bad for me. All of my family stayed out of the hospital for the year, which was a nice change of pace. Got vaccinated to the gills. No Covid. Hell, aside from seasonal allergies, I've not really been sick in a couple of years now.

Got a new, better, job. Like the people I work with.

All told, I really can't complain too much about 2021. The isolation bit has sort of sucked, but it's not been as intense as 2020. The hints of politics for 2022 and 2024 are a source of the odd sleepless night, but I can't do anything about that.

See ya 2021. I won't say you've been a bucket of fun, but you've not given me too much grief. Here's hoping 2022 isn't a dumpster fire.

Pissing on the dumpster fire

As I started pondering my drinking, I found myself thinking of the good things that happened in 2020.

Shocking statement, right? What good things happened?

• Trump lost his bid for re-election. By a lot.
• The toilet paper crisis turned out to be a bunch of shit.
• Trump lost.
• Medical science has performed a basic miracle and come up with vaccines for COVID-19. Vaccines - plural.
• As of 12:01 PM on January 20, 2021, Trump will no longer be in the White House.

Yeah, it's not much, but ya gotta find the positives in life.

Nearly the end of 2020

So tomorrow's New Year's Eve. Last day of the fucking dumpster fire of shitstorms we've called 2020.

Don't think anyone's going to be sad to see 2020 fade into the distance.

Right now, the more contagious strain of Covid-19 is appearing here in California. I think we've got about 2 million cases of Covid infection so far. To say things are bad here really doesn't begin to cover how fucked it's gotten.

Ah California. You've really had a time of it, haven't you? Fires (God, the fires), economic issues, returning drought, and (of course) Covid-19.

Fucking hell.

I'm personally bunkering down like a madman and drinking far too many whisky cocktails (or just whisky straight). I'm going to give myself another few days then dry out a bit. But not until after 2021 is here, thankyouverymuch.