Update It has been a few weeks since this and I think you deserve an update. You can find the last update in the comment section. Our last stand was that we went to the counseling session. She decided to go on the week long holiday she had booked beforehand, to get her mind cleared. I used that time to sort my thought too. I realized that I suffer the least if I assume that this is going to happen, that she will keep the child because then I could think about solutions to the problems my mind was producing and not cling onto the hope that she will get an abortion. The counselor gave us the contacts of all clinics and doctors that perform abortions in the area and she asked me to get an appointment with one so we get all the information and could make a decision. So I did, after 5 of the addresses were closed in that time (due to holidays) I managed to get an appointment the Monday after she comes back from her holidays. I pick her up from the train station, we talk, and about an hour later she tells me that she decided to keep the baby. By that moment I had been detached from the thought that she might go for an abortion and honestly, the decision relaxed me, because it was a decision, after 3 weeks of unknowing. This was also the first time we did not talk about my family, or our worries, it was the first time we talked about how life could be, for her and for me with the baby coming. Nevertheless, the next day, we went to the doctor's appointment to be informed. We learned that many things that we found on the internet were wrong and she seemed to fear the procedure more than anything. The doctor gave her two days to decide whether she wants to have it or not. As time was passing and we shouldn't wait too long. We discuss and talk more and she decides to call her parents, to know how they feel, as in case she is going to keep the baby, they will be the people helping her the most. On Wednesday morning, I get a call from her telling me that she has an appointment for an abortion on Friday that same week and asked if I can accompany her and take care of her for the following 24h. On that same day in the evening, she also said that she wants to end the relationship in a few weeks, when it is all over. The way I reacted was not the way she expected me to and she doesn't know if she can be with a person like me. Friday comes, we drive there, she has the procedure done in 10 minutes. All went well, she takes 2 hours to recover from anesthesia and then we head home. Spending the day watching TV shows and eating. A day later some friends of her were coming over as it was her birthday on Sunday. We celebrate and have fun, as much as we can, at least. Sunday evening, just before bed, we talk and realize that there is no sense in prolonging it much longer. Monday morning she tells me she is taking all her things and leaves... I was shocked, but also realized that it is probably for the best. On one hand I want to be there for her in that time, but on the other, it is her decision and a clear cut is the best for both of us. What a roller coaster. Two weeks ago she contacts me, to talk. Questioning whether our decision was right. She expected me to stop her from going. She was angry that I did not contact her to ask when her post-procedure checkup was (which turned out well, everything back to normal). We talked, we cried, we hugged, I told her that I am starting a therapy (had my first session last week), she was happy for me. Still a roller coaster, distracting myself with work and my plans for summer. Conference in Berlin in two weeks, Burn (The Borderland) in Denmark in 4 weeks, meeting the girl from Israel in 6 weeks... "Life is long and weird, and strange. There are plenty of questions that we can't know the answer to until much later. As you're only human, be as human as you can." - humanodon Tagging everyone that might need an update: b_b, oyster, lil, _refugee_, steve, humanodon, goobster, kleinbl00 Thank you for listening to me and giving me the chance to pour out my guts
I am doing good. I guess. Focusing on work. The next few weeks will be action-packed with a conference and burn later this month. It might sound weird but I am falling in love, really hard. On one side I am feeling guilty that I am not "suffering" and that I am not sad like my ex. But on the other I am happy to have met such a wonderful person. Sarah decided to cut all communications yesterday, and I can understand her. It makes me sad though... How are you doing?
Things are chugging along. Looking for a new job, trying to tie up loose ends; adult life maintenance shit-- you know how it goes. Well, I don't blame you for feeling guilty for not suffering. That's kind of a weird space to be in. But hey, lucky you for finding this other person, I hope it works out.
Brief update. Back in the ER for the second day in a row. There is a bundle of muscle clamping down over my LAD, also known as the widowmaker. I'm receiving conflicting advice from one doctor who is simultaneously telling me that I can return to work and should immediately report to the Emergency room whenever I feel bad. I am in the process of finding a new doctor.
I spent some time completely offline. No Youtube, no websites, no any of this fuckery. The Universe and I had a pleasant chat, Nature send a million bloodsuckers after my precious bodily fluids, then I spent a few days in a room doing nothing by playing UT4 with 400 other nerds.
There's a homeless guy where I run up in Seattle. He says hi and eggs me on. About a year back I was running through the park and I saw him getting the absolute living shit beaten out of him. I called the cops. They came a'runnin'. He was pretty fucked up for a while but he's always got a smile. About two weeks back I saw him. I always urge him to come with me and this time he did. We traded names. He'd found Jesus, had been two days sober (but was not giving up weed), had gotten all of his "misdemeanor trespass" (IE, homelessness) charges dropped and had gotten slotted into a halfway house. He ran a mile with me. It was dope. I went running this afternoon (amazing how arduous it is when your body has switched over to "we bike 150 miles a week" mode). He was there, and he went running with me again. He's 17 days sober now, still in the halfway house and had been offered a job by the parks department - "after all, they know me pretty well." And the dude was tan. It's like he'd been out during the daylight and shit. NOW LOOK AT THIS FUCKING THING It could be mine for a mere $15k. It will make pens a dozen at a time. It has a PLC and pneumatic control to apply a 300-year-old technology to fine writing instruments. It is quite possibly the most ridiculous mechanical device ever made. And oh, the Dieselpunk absurdity of it. The lust I feel. It hisses and whirrs and clanks as it works. It is truly an amazing thing. I made the mistake of meeting with a machining tools rep a couple days ago. He supports what he calls "CNC art" and pointed out that he sold my school a 7-axis turning-machining center at cost. It's the thing in the corner that everyone's afraid of. It could make fancy-ass pens out of flippin' bar stock if I program it right. And it could do them at high speed, three phase, carbide cut and fog cooled. My wife pointed out that the ridiculous pen machine is a third of the way to a used 7-axis mill-turn. So I didn't spend used-car money on machine tools this week. I guess that's something. But I can tell this particular piece of wierdness is going to haunt me for a while. Here's a video of a machine that makes chicken wire.
It might be easy to expect homeless people to just be constantly miserable. Nope. They're just ordinary people who can range from awesome to fucking assholes. When I was on the streets last year there was this one dude who was incredibly cheerful. He bought me coffee and a banana at least once. I hit him back later when I could. He refused to go to the Salvation Army shelter for some reason and where exactly he slept I have no idea. He was over the moon when he got a tent. You just adapt. I've been paralyzed by depression in a luxury apartment with food and a pretty lady who claimed she loved me. And I've been so pissed off by Alcoholics Anonymous and county level bureaucracy fucking me over that I've soldiered forward out of pure spite. Life's weird. Edit: Also, I missed the chicken wire machine video. I've operated one of those before in one of many many jobs. "Operating" pretty much just involves watching, removing full spools and occasionally replacing a giant roll of sheet metal. One person can operate ten of them at the same time.
I actually worked one of these I'm too lazy right now to find a video of one going full bore. It's literally deafening to be in a warehouse with a hundred of these spitting out a foot a second. They didn't give me earplugs the first day and my ears rang for about a day afterwards.
My wife is really having a rough time of it, right now. She consumes a lot of social media, and we all know that landscape is full of the Republican apocalyptic hellscape that America is becoming. This weekend we went to our favorite little Burning Man event (the only BM thing we still do), on Vancouver Island, called Otherworld. We've been going for several years. Got lots of friends up there. (A surprising number of them not on any social media at all. It's an Island Thing.) It was gorgeous, and filled with love and happiness and people just having a really lovely time together. And we cross back into the US, and ... the Trumpian shitstorm that is everyday life in America today. I have a 9-5, and can focus on that all day. But she works for herself, and only picks up new clients when she needs/wants to. So she has a lot of time. She runs the dog. She does most of the shopping, and the standing in various government lines to get forms signed. So she flips open her phone, and ... she's back in the shit again. Yeah, yeah, yeah... curate... filter... blah blah blah. There's only so much of that you can do, because all of it requires you to have already seen the stuff you want to filter out. If you can't define what you don't want to see (because you've already seen it), then you can't filter it effectively. So yeah. It's hard to watch her spin out of control on this. I distract her, draw her out of it when I can, but she's in the passenger seat as we are passing this colossal car-wreck in process, and she can't help but look. And much of her business takes place on Facebook, Craigslist, eBay, affinity groups, etc. So turning off the tools she uses for her business would just leave her even more at sea, with even less to do. Anyway. It's hard watching someone you love trying to pass a stone like this one... there's not much you can do, but be moral support... --- Next week, we shoot fireworks (we are professionals and shoot a city's annual 4th of July fireworks show every year... ask KB for photos...), and the next day we fly to San Diego for the Major League Rugby Championship game (hopefully between the Seattle Seawolves and Glendale Raptors), and to celebrate our anniversary weekend. Visiting friends. Watching rugby. Beaches. It should be pretty dang good. Fingers crossed...
It's great that you and your wife are going to be able to spend some time away from the internet next week. It seems like a lot of us have lost sight with just how beneficial real life interactions are for us, both for our individual health as well as the health of our social groups. I'm not going to pretend to have any advice for you or your wife's situation, but I will say that the more time I spend interacting with people in meat space the more I want to dedicate my time to interacting with people in meat space. Something tells me I'm probably not alone in feeling that way and that there's probably significance in that.
Yeah... we have heavily isolated ourselves from our community ever since the election (and some intra-community kerfuffle), and we don't watch TV, so our news and information comes from the internet in various forms. It's time to get out and have drinks with friends again. And explore the world...
More last minute work-travel. Camping/hiking this week, back-packing next week, fitting time in with girl in-between, turning down invites to other things because I'm already booked up, and wondering where things are going from here.
Any specific hikes in mind or are you deciding on the fly?
Wherever we can find a camping spot in the North Cascades, honestly.
Just got off work a an hour or so ago, I'm in Watertown, NY this week. I spent yesterday after work checking out the river fit for white water rafting, that runs through the town, and, a little drive away, Sacket Harbor Battleground from the War of 1812. I'm not a huge history buff but it was still an interesting walkabout. I'm gonna grab some sleep in a bit and drive to check out Salmon River Falls before work tonight. Being on the road gets lonely but staying busy outside of work has made it less so. All in all though this is my first time in upstate NY and NY itself. It's gorgeous out here in a way I didn't expect. Also being 30 minutes from Canada without being able to enter has convinced me to renew my passport when I get home haha. Anyways, have a good day hubski, I wish everyone productivity and progress.
I'm starting to wonder if employers have any idea what they even want from their candidates. Even the interview I got through internal recommendation was delayed twice before someone called to tell me that the position is no longer open. And at the one place where my interviews went really well, people told me I'm overqualified. So I'm somehow overqualified for an entry position, but lack the experience to get anything above entry position. Pointing that out wasn't persuading anyone. Maybe I should chug some cough medications before my next interview? You know, to get a good amount of handicap. I'm literally back to where I was seven years ago (and ever since): teaching maths and science to highschoolers threatened with repeating a grade. It's so fucking disheartening, and motivation is pretty much the only thing I have.
I've done a little bit of hiring, and IMO it's no less confusing on the other side. You try to pick someone you think will fit with everyone else, and you want someone that will stay, and everyone needs to agree upon that person. TBH, experience is a big factor, but not necessarily as important as feeling the fit is good. We've passed on people that we all wanted to hire, just because there was someone else we all wanted to hire. I wouldn't take the excuses/reasons given to heart. They probably are only partially true, probably not the deciding factor, and it's not unlikely that you were edged out for a trivial or arbitrary reason.
Library Part 1 Part 2 So I recently talked to the manager of my local library branch and they were able to give me a lot of helpful information. Sorry if this is typical information to anyone else, but as a guy who used to always just buy any book he wants, this is all new to me. - With a few rare exceptions, all of the books in the libraries that aren’t in the central branch are considered a floating inventory. They can be ordered from any branch in the city and be returned to any branch in the city. Wherever they’re returned is where they’ll remain unless someone checks them out and returns them to another branch. If you look at my post from last week, you’ll see that I’m contradicting myself. That’s because I misread a book’s status on the library’s online ordering system. Mea culpa or whatever some latin dude said. - Pretty much all of the branches have a pretty sparse non-fiction section, with mostly filler and a few diamonds in the rough. I wasn’t given a reason for this, but to be fair, I didn’t ask. - The central branch has a ton of good books. Unfortunately, a lot of the really interesting books cannot be checked out because they’re any combination old, expensive, or rare, and the library often has only one copy of them. This is a rule set in place to prevent these hard to replace books from getting damaged or lost. Any branch manager can request s non-borrowable book be transferred to their inventory temporarily for the convenience of a patron, but A) the book cannot leave library grounds and B) the request can be denied. - Additionally, if there is a book that a patron is interested that is not in the city library’s inventory at all, a librarian can help them try to order the book through a statewide loan system, of which many of the colleges are a member of and we all know colleges tend to have some really juicy choices. I did not ask whether or not these books can be taken home to read once ordered, but if I had to guess, it’s a case by case basis. - There is a team of people that work at the central branch that decide what books to order for the libraries. From what I can tell, they work with their own criteria and public input doesn’t have much sway. However, I can donate books specifically to be added to the library’s inventory (instead of being put up for sale for fund raising purposes), but anything I donate will be added to the floating inventory and as such, there’s no guarantee they’ll stay at the local branch. For a ten minute conversation, I learned a heck of a lot. My local branch manager was very helpful and friendly and just all around pretty awesome actually. I kind of wish they were my boss. Surprise Mini Ask Hubski So with that said, if you were given the option to donate just one book to be put into your local library’s inventory, what would it be and why?
I was thinking along the same lines as ThatFanficGuy that classics are the best single book. The other side of that coin is nobody on the fence about reading more is going to pick up a book thicker than it is wide. I'm going to go with Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, even despite the valid criticisms against it. It's an easy read and a compelling story, and the author is somewhat known in pop culture (because of Into The Wild which I can't pick no matter how easy to read or compelling it is). It's the kind of story that might make someone think "maybe if I should try this difficult thing, and it's ok to not succeed as long as I don't die." That little push can help people.
That's fair. I wasn't promoting starting to read with Tolstoy: I was promoting giving the opportunity to people who'd want to.The other side of that coin is nobody on the fence about reading more is going to pick up a book thicker than it is wide.
And I do agree. As you said, they're classics for a reason. Reading about Napoleon's army getting stuffed at Borodino and then smashed into the ground on their way out of Moscow was deeply enjoyable. Is Kutuzov revered in Russia?
Yes. His name is held in high regard, along with the likes of Georgy Zhukov. Mikhail Kutuzov is considered one of the greatest Russian generals, and everyone knows his name.
I'm a little surprised you haven't heard of Zhukov. He's the Soviet General-to-beat-all-Generals. Many of the Soviet generals did a great job during WWII, but Zhukov seem to have stood above the rest. I don't know much myself, but I'll tell you what I know. I reckon you can about the men on Wikipedia if you want facts, so I'll condense my miniscule expertise to make it interesting. Kutuzov was one of the great Empire Generals during the Russian portion of Napoleonic Wars, dubbed here the Patriotic War. Some contend that he was the best. He was granted the title of Duke of Smolensk, which is a little funny 'cause Smolensk was on the way to Moscow for both Napoleon Bonapart and Adolf Hitler and was destroyed during both wars. He effectively lost an eye in one of the battles at Crimea: the bullet broke through his right temple and scarred the eye. Kutuzov was also considered a great diplomat and took part in many of the era's important negotiations. He made the Crimean khan submit to Russia and effectively give away the peninsula. There's still a large population of Crimean tatars there, and they're slowly growing resentful of the country running the place because they aren't recognized, as well as treated with little respect as a people. Kutuzov had also done a lot of negotiations with Prussia, which was an important relationship with Russia at the time. Kutuzov served under three of the Russian emperors - Catherine II, Paul I and Alexander I. If memory serves, he was loved by Catherine, who gave him the Duke's title. His military career started early, and he showed his commanding prowess quickly, rising to an officer position in three years. He took part in three of the Russian-Turkish wars before taking part in the Patriotic War. He led the famous Battle at Borodino, near Moscow, in what's described as the biggest battle to its date. He also made the decision to let Napoleon into Moscow, but also burn it to the ground, so the French emperor would have nothing to celebrate at (most buildings in Moscow were made of wood at the time). Starved for supplies and suffering attrition in the inhospitable Russian lands, the French forces were then driven back and crushed by the Russian army led by Kutuzov. His victory title at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, granted by Alexander I, was His Serene Highness Knyaz Golenischev-Kutuzov-Smolensky (Golenischev-Kutuzov is his born surname, while Smolensky is the addition due to the title of the Duke of the city; knyaz is a Russian royal title that, I believe, is roughly equivalent to the European title of Duke). Zhukov was a Soviet General that is most known for his cotribution to the Allies' victory over the Nazi Germany. He was the Soviet Minister of Defence for two years, before being ousted behind Zhukov's back in a political power play. At the start of the Soviet portion of the WWII, dubbed the Great Patriotic War, Zhukov oversaw the defence of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). His front then joined with a different one and he, along with Kliment Voroshilov - another great Soviet General of the WWII era - oversaw the defence of Moscow, as well as planned the Stalingrad (now Volgograd, where this great statue now stands) counteroffensive. One of his major WWII achievements was coordinating the Battle of Kursk, a great battle in that in forced Germans, relying before on the Blitzkrieg (German for swift war) doctrine, to halt their advance as well as launch a counteroffensive that would tip the strategic favor in the Soviets' favor on the Eastern front. There are claims - by Konstantin Rokossovsky, the other of the two Marshals of the Soviet Army, no less (the first one being Zhukov) - that Zhukov had actually arrived just before the battle and made no decisions on the matter. Zhukov basically won Ukraine and Belarussia over from Germans with his command of the local respective armies. From there, he and the Red Army marched onto Berlin in a decisive manner. His soldiers' advance was marked by the same atrocities towards civilians that the Nazi army perpetrated on their way to Russia: pillaging, murder and rape. Zhukov was personally chosen to oversee the German surrender. He was at the table where the German Instrument for Surrender - the legal document for capitulation of Germany - was signed. Photo I (Zhukov is the one signing the document, with the brighter uniform; to his right shoulder is Soviet Foreign Minister Andrey Vyshinksiy, to his left shoulder - General Vasily Sokolovskiy). Photo II (Zhukov et al. - same people around him - await the Germans signing the document). Photo III (Zhukov reads the capitulation act aloud). Other cool photos: Dwight Eisenhower, Georgy Zhukov and the Royal Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder at Royal Army Field Marshal Bertrand Montgomery's reception of the Soviet Order of Victory. Field Marshal Bertrand Montgomery, General Dwight Eisenhower, General Georgy Zhukov and Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, a French military commander, posthumously a Marshal. Allies at the Branderburg Gate, very soon after German capitulation, with Zhukov and the other two Soviet Generals decorated by the Allies). Zhukov on the cover of LIFE magazine, 1944. Post-war, Zhukov served in the military and in the political apparatus for a while. In 1946, his apartment was searched, and many German valuables, taken as war trophies illegally, were found. This included gold, furs, gems and even furniture. Zhukov apologized for looting the German lands in a public letter. A highly popular commander and a war hero revered by the public, he was seen as a threat to power in the Stalinist USSR. Beria, a right hand to Stalin, sought to topple Zhukov - unsuccessfully. Stalin was in awe of Zhukov, which also made the paranoid Stalin afraid of the Marshal. Still, somehow, he was saved from the Purge that affected other great Soviet military commanders, including Mikhail Tukhachevsky, after whom there are now streets named in many cities. After Stalin died, Zhukov, demanded political rehabilitation of many of the people suffered from the Purge, including Tukhachevsky. Ten years after the war, due to the scheming and plotting of the post-Stalin political apparatus, prone to conformism, Zhukov was retired behind his back, while he himself was on a trip to Albania. He was 63. This next bit from Wikipedia I love: From Wikipedia: Eisenhower was always a fan of Zhukov's, ever since the two meeting after the victory. He supported his "comrade-in-arms" after Zhukov had "troubles" (see: the looting incident). Zhukov presents the Order of Victory to Eisenhower. Zhukov and Eisenhower at the Moscow Airport, August 11th, 1945. Eisenhower, Zhukov and Montgomery (unseen) toasting the Allied victory. After suffering a stroke, Zhukov started working hard at his memoir, Reminiscences and Reflections (link to the Russian-language Wikipedia page). He reportedly worked hard at it, which, combined with his heart disease, caused him to suffer a serious stroke. He later died from a second stroke, in 1974, aged 77.In September 1959, while visiting the United States, Khrushchev told US President Eisenhower that the retired Marshal Zhukov "liked fishing" (Zhukov was actually a keen aquarist). Eisenhower, in response, sent Zhukov a set of fishing tackle. Zhukov respected this gift so much that he is said to have exclusively used Eisenhower's fishing tackle for the remainder of his life.
Fishing tackle is the equipment used by anglers when fishing. Almost any equipment or gear used for fishing can be called fishing tackle. Some examples are hooks, lines, sinkers, floats, rods, reels, baits, lures, spears, nets, gaffs, traps, waders and tackle boxes.
Wow. That's quite the impressive summary. Did you learn about these two in school or did you study up on them during your free time out of interest? I'm just curious, because here in the states, we're taught a little about generals like Grant, MacArthur, Patton, etc., but they're not covered very heavily. I think it's safe to say you know more about one man than I know about three combined. I think by far my favorite bit is about Eisenhower sending Zhukov fishing supplies as a gift.
We learn quite a bit about the war heroes at school. Like kb once said somewhere on Hubski, "Russians still celebrate the V-day" (we do; it's ridiculously pompeous). The cult of arms in the US is focused on the present military might rather than the achievements of the past. Russia doesn't have that strong a military - or anything, for that matter - so we rely on our predecessors' fame to support our national unity. I didn't want to leave you hanging - you did ask me about something, after all - so after I pulled a bit from my memory, I brushed it up with a Wikipedia read. You could've read a lot of it on your own. But you asked me. So I did my best to relay the information. I knew much more about Zhukov from a few years ago, when I read a little about him. It may have been for the state exam on History, but he was an interesting figure to me anyway. I've only considered his relationship with Eisenhower significant after the latest read, despite me being an Americophile for a lot longer.
The reason libraries are thin is that librarians will walk through fire to get you a book when you need it. I've gotten xerox copies of 40-50 pages faxed from libraries in Louisiana to New Mexico back when "fax" was an alien technology. Libraries don't need your books. Think of the stuff on the shelves as the exhibition at a museum, the inter-library loan as the museum's collection and everything else as "someone's old crappy books." We've got a real thing about "NEVER EVER DESTROY BOOKS" but fuckin' hell, "paper" has not equalled "knowledge" for 30 years now and just because the dead tree version is available somewhere does not mean that the huddled masses questing for knowledge will stumble across it on the shelves and be smitten with enlightenment. "Library science" is a graduate degree. My grandmother was a librarian. Wandering around assuming you know more about what should be on shelves than the professionals do for the simple reason that you like books is... naive.
When I was desperately looking for a career ca. 2009 I looked in the public libraries near me. Why the fuck am I gonna spend $50,000 to get a library science degree so I can be qualified to shelve books for $15,000 a year? A master's in library science was seriously a requirement for a $10/hour job. At the time I don't think I'd given up on getting an MFA and becoming a professor which pays fuck all, but I'd be making a thing I could sell on the side. The professional world is a big, dumb, stupid place where a master's in "communications" can net you a VP title at a bank and an equivalent in an actual field can net you Top Ramen for dinner every day"Library science" is a graduate degree.
Any of the classics, no matter if Russian, English, Chinese or whatever. I have a number of literature classics lying dead in a drawer after my aunt died. I wanted to donate the whole 100+ kg of them to a local library. If I had to pick one, I'd probably be Tolstoy. Why? 'cause they're classics for a reason. They're a calcification of the vast human experience. Everyone should get the opportunity to read them.
Yeah. If I had to give a classic, it'd probably be Beowulf. Then the question becomes, which translation? I'd probably give a few copies of Burton Raffel's translation because it's very affordable, very poetic while still being easy to read, and it's honestly my favorite. Heck, I have three or four copies just because they're an easy gift to give. I'd probably give one or two copies of Seamus Heaney's translation too, because it's also quite good and it has the old English and Heaney's translation side by side and I always love it when publishers do that. I think Frankenstein and Innocents Abroad would be fun to give too.
Headed to Houston, then a couple of days in SF. My wife and daughter just left to China for three weeks. It'll be some serious FL time, then a break to the North. I have plans to paint a lot, and I'd like to remove all JS from Hubski. We went camping recently, and I whittled my daughter a bow and arrow. I love whittling.
After months of not really finding a good replacement for my RAM-fried OnePlus 2, I finally found one that checked all the boxes and got a Huawei P20 this weekend. It has the best camera (105 DxOmark) and battery (3400mAh) in the smallest form factor and at midrange prices. It basically looks like an iPhone X but has all the software benefits of Android / Nova Launcher. I like it much more than I thought, and it cost me only €40. I'm two-thirds into Piketty after about ten days of listening. I can say that it is the most interesting boring book I've read in a long time. I'm considering getting the hardcover when I'm done with it - partly to impress people, but mostly because some day I want to have a long bookshelf of big, heavy, amazing books that I can look back on. I now also have Instagram. It's fun, but I wish I could buy off the ads.
Be super diligent with your security on the Huawei. They are well-known for inserting backdoors that the Chinese state uses for numerous unknown purposes. I used to work in the field of internet network security, and the exploits and backdoors - all the way down to the chip level - in Huawei devices were legion. And we were discovering more all the time. And that was four years ago...
While I most definitely heed your warning, I'm jumping ship from one Chinese brand to the other. So I'm used to this: Huawei is supposedly worse, but I doubt it is much worse. I have all but given up on feeling secure about what I do on my phone - it's not a "lesser of two evils" kinda thing, it's an "everyone is a devil" kinda thing.
The hardcover of Piketty also has all the graphs and charts that he keeps referring to. We got my wife a Oneplus 6. It appears that the P20 is only 2/3rds compatible with T-Mobile... and is a bitch to buy in the US.
I live in an area now where white people are a statistical minority. I'm pretty often aware of my whiteness and the otherness that implies in this area. And I realize that this is the American experience for every racial group that isn't mine in every place I've ever lived
I had the same feeling when I moved to Detroit. It took some getting used to, but after a while it really does help you to see people as people and not as a demographic. Not that I'm saying that you can eliminate your biases, just that you have an easier time seeing people's humanity before you see their racial or ethnic traits. When I got married I moved back to the burbs (typical, right), and I like my house, but I really would prefer to raise my kid around more non-white people. My wife and kid are Jews, so they basically comprise the diversity of the neighborhood. I grew up in a snow white place like that, and I can say that it does affect you. I had to unlearn a bunch of stuff as an adult.
Cultural cues, I guess. When you grow up in a place that is snow white, and lots of the white people are racist, and most of the exposure you have to black people is from music, movies, and TV, you tend to have a distorted view of black people. It's an almost certain outcome. Especially when the closest city to you is Detroit, which is an economically depressed place with endemic crime, and most of the adults you know wouldn't go within the city limits without a really good reason, you will almost certainly be intuitively afraid of geographic locations that are predominantly black. That's shitty but true.
I'm not complaining. I think it's good for me. I know plenty of other people would be pushed to racism or galvanized in existent opinions in the situation which is fucked up also the predictable reaction of a certain set of the whites. I do wish the Latino population would put some limit on what is acceptable behavior of their children in public. I couldn't take a shit the other day because a little boy was wandering aimlessly around a restaurant and decided the latch on the stall door was an awesome toy. Hard to be culturally sensitive when a popular parenting style of a culture butts up against basic anatomical necessity