Flailure

It’s been a minute since I bitched about my German 4 class. Y’all, I am failing so goddamn badly. Right now, I have a mid C, which I pulled out of F by turning in a single writing. But tomorrow, I have a chapter test and a chapter project due (a video review and writing). And 6 hours of chapter homework unfinished. I’m not gonna make it.

For my own sanity, I really should quit. Just stop. But I also have some sunk cost in this: 3 finished semesters with a B, and 2/3 of the way through this one. I don’t want to quit, but I also don’t want to absolutely hate myself and my performance or answer for my own failings. I’d rather just let it die naturally instead of killing it. Since this is just Continuing Education instead of school credit, it’s pass/no-pass. So I feel like a no-pass is better than a Did Not Finish.

Runners will tell you they’d rather come in last across the line as long as they cross it.

I feel the emotional, mental, and physical burn of knowing that my skills are regressing, but that I have to keep going. Have to. One chapter left. Please, no DNF.

Plus One

Age is just a number, they say. Mine just autoincremented. Now it’s bigger. And that makes me sad for some reason.

Project Left the Fuck Alone is currently under way. “No expectations” is the best gift I can get. No making a big deal. No ruined surprises. No special treatment. And that’s how I like it.

And the conveyor belt keeps rolling.

Slow

Yesterday around 5pm I had a big bowl of ramen at the restaurant. Tonight at 1:30am I’m still belching ramen, which really tells me everything I should be learning about how slowly my body digests food.

The hard part of weight management is discerning when I should and should not be eating. Not by looking at a clock and eating because it’s on the schedule. But by literally having a gut feel for when I’m truly hungry.

The best diet is just called, “Less, As Needed”.

SXSW Day Zero

So SXSW starts today. I am at once nervous and excited and tired already. I don’t know what to expect this year, but that’s the point, right? I paid $200 walk-up for my Music wristband, so at least I can bounce out of venues if the band doesn’t grab me. But my trepidation is that there I’ll be, this old-shaped thing, interloping in young spaces looking for young vibes to keep my soul alive.

Vampires we become.

Logistics are my initial concern (parking, food, getting around), but so is safety and awareness. Being old-shaped is a handicap, even in this town. I guess that’s why people get more gun-nutty as they get older. I’ll just keep my head on a swivel and my wallet in the front, and I think I’ll be ahead of the game.

Seriously, though, I hope to have fun this year, to find serendipity. My aim is to distract myself for a week and come away with new artists in my wishlist to enjoy for the next year. That’s what keeps me young.

Encrypted Tunnel Railroad

I’m super glad that I set up an OpenVPN server in my apartment, especially this weekend. Do you know what national hotel chain offers free WiFi, but that it’s:

  • unencrypted (readable by others without password)
  • forces a captive portal landing page where it:
  • requires you entering your last name and room number, ostensibly as a hurdle that grants rights only to valid guests
  • misleads you with a dark pattern to set up a rewards account, which, if you decline:
  • forces you to watch an ad before it will start forwarding internet traffic

It’s Comfort Inn. That’s who. And they’re not the only one.

First, I hate this. Give me a password with my room key, change it daily, I don’t care. At least that encrypts the packets on the air so other guests can’t sniff and follow my activities.

Second, with the way they’ve designed their captive portal, it becomes a sales pitch, as well as a way to link my internet activities to my name. It blows any idea of anonymity out of the air.

Third, if I have to pay for the WiFi with my time and attention (never minding the nightly room fee), then the free WiFi isn’t free.

By using an OpenVPN tunnel to my home, all I’ve done is shifted the inspectability of my connection from the hotel’s point of view to my home ISP, which currently is Spectrum. At least Spectrum doesn’t appear to be monetizing my metadata and redirecting me to sales offers unrelated to cable internet. Not like Comfort Inn currently is. Spectrum is the devil I know. But this hotel? Who knows who they’re selling data to, with and without a subpoena.

Anything we can do to minimize the brutality of hostile networks is a win, and that’s important for our survival.

Especially now that AdTech is FaschTech.