2026-06-19 06:59:00
I wear my favorite perfumes and body sprays at home. I used to try to save them for when I went out on a nice date or attended an upscale Event, then I realized I was hardly getting any use out of them. What good is it doing me to have bought pretty-smelling sprays if I just put them on a shelf and never wear them?
So now, I wear them while I work from home. I spray perfume or body spray on myself after showering, and if I can't smell it on myself anymore around lunchtime, I spray some more. I sit at my desk in a comfy t-shirt and shorts, smelling so nice with my fancy sprays that it brings a smile to my face.
My current favorite body spray has me smelling like a refreshing, bright, juicy grapefruit.
2026-06-19 02:53:55
I started coding about 20 years, about 14 years old, learning HTML & CSS on W3Schools to customize my MySpace.
Since then, I've done Android and iOS development, frontend web development (including Javascript), and a hell of a lot of backend web development (with PHP). I've also done some BASH scripting and made several developer tools written in PHP.
I've loved programming for a long time. It has felt like a thing that I need to do. Its part passion, part obsession, part I want to make actually useful things.
It may just be a slump I'm in, but I feel that fire dying within me.
I was working on a tool recently that would help me scrape websites. I have two use-cases in mind. one is to scrape Trackmania track records so that I can see when my Author Times are beaten on maps that I've made, and also to watch for when a streamer plays one of my maps (so I can go watch them discover it). The other use-case is to scrape local news websites to build a search database of just local news.
I started this Scraper-tool a week or two ago (or a month? idr), and I was fairly excited by it. Then I got on to work on it yesterday. I made notes about the direction the project should go ... and I made twice as many notes about how its probably just not worth my time.
First of all, there are already free & open source tools for scraping websites. But I like building my own things! Especially since I have specific use-cases in mind and am not sure how much shopping I need to do to a find a tool that I can finegle to do exactly what I want.
Second of all, I'm mentally disabled. I can work on my projects for 1-2 hours at a time ... every once in awhile. If I could work 8 hour days, or even 4 hour days, this project would be finished and excellent within a week, maybe two. But because of my limitation, this project could take literal months to complete. I have other more important projects that call for my attention, since my ability to work is so limited.
Third, mother fucking Generative AI.
Much of the software I've built over the last 7 years has been ... stuff to make it easier to developer software in-general (tool to generate documentation, tool to manage databases, etc) & stuff to make it easier to develop websites.
I've made some really great things. I've made some shitty things. And I have some projects that are getting close to being amazing, though they aren't quite there YET.
I've always had the concern of ... well ... there's already competing products that do things almost as well as my software will do them. I could use the off-the-shelf software to build my websites. But frankly, that just doesn't satisfy my passions, an I'm all-in on the sunk-cost fallacy. I'm also just really proud of my work and I want to see where it goes.
But now with AI. Just what's the fucking point? I always wanted these tools to be used by others to make it easier for people to develop software they care about. But in the age of AI, especially as it gets better at generating code, the utility of my potentially-better-software just ... isn't there.
I've had many bouts before with "What's the point?" But its feeling different this time.
I think if not for my disability, I would feel quite differently.
And maybe its my mood. I'm a little burnt out right now. Something I'm struggling to address because if I really take a day to rest, I just get bored and antsy and then feel like I need to do stuff. And then doing stuff is exhausting.
But maybe I'll feel differently when my mood has leveled back out. Maybe.
2026-06-18 23:46:34
I heard on the news today that monasteries here in Sweden are seeing increased interest from young people. They are curious about the monastery life and seeking answers to whether there's more to their own lives than what they currently experience.
Why this trend?
Who knows, but it wouldn't be too far-fetched a guess to say it's at least to some extent related to today's connected society. Notifications, likes, comments, sharing, tracking everything, endless entertainment at your fingertips 24/7, always updated...
Swipe and you'll have the answer to anything served. But that's not quite true, is it?
No search engine or AI model will be able to answer the questions that are most important on a personal level: the existential ones.
Who am I? What's my calling in life? How do I fit into all this?
It's like the closer we get to obtaining superficial information, the further we drift from the deeper answers.
When the Swedish monk Björn Natthiko Lindeblad was giving talks, he often quoted Winnie the Pooh:
Piglet: "Owl knows so much!"
Pooh: "Yes, and that's probably why he understands so little."
We've become owls. Knowing without understanding.
Whoo-Whoo-Whooooo am I?
2026-06-18 19:09:17
Here are 20 steps that I reconned somewhere on the internet. Even though I called them "steps," order of execution does not matter.
2026-06-18 03:29:03
Why???
I'm trying to login to this site at work, and now they need me to setup my google account so I can use a Passkey for increased security...??? There was no way around putting my phone number. At least I managed to avoid the passkey by scanning the QR with another nor connected phone.
WHY DO WE NEED TO USE GOOGLE TO INCREASE OUR SECURITY? This is soooo weird and it doesn't make any sense. Just make me put two passwords, authenticator, or any other shit.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER
2026-06-17 23:56:21
I get it - it's hard to see good things happening in the world today. Hard not to be cynical about the world, about people, and about our future as a species. There is a lot to be worried about, and the world is more chaotic and unpredictable than ever.
Despite all of this, I choose optimism. I choose to hope that humans can be better, imagine a world where things can be greater than what they are today, and work hard to create a world where new and exciting things are happening for all people, every day. This extends to big ideas, but also to every day things, too.
Try it. If you think something should exist in this world, make it exist. If you want something to be better in this world, work to make it better. You will be astounded with how much it changes your outlook.