Category: Daily Events

Here’s something that grinds my gears: waiters/waitresses at restaurants who insist on memorizing your order instead of writing it on a notepad. Why do they do this? Does the restaurant require them to have exceptional short-term memory, as if memorizing the order is somehow classier than writing it down? Or do the servers themselves feel so confident in their memory that they forego the notepad? It’s not impressive to me if you can memorize a list of items, and it’s infinitely more annoying if the order comes out incorrectly due to a failure of memory, or if the server comes back to double-check what I ordered. None of this is necessary.

In fact it’s mildly anxiety-inducing when the party at my table lists all the items they’re ordering, and the server does nothing except nod smilingly. It then becomes a minor miracle if the order ends up being fulfilled correctly, which I suppose is a payoff of sorts, but it doesn’t have to be. Just write it down.

Time for a small confession: I watch/listen to ASMR videos before falling asleep. ASMR is very much a real phenomenon, and I respond to certain ASMR triggers very strongly, although not as strongly as I did when I was younger. The first time I experienced it was all the way back in first grade: sitting at my desk in class, a voice started speaking over the PA system, and something about the sound or texture of the voice caused an overwhelming tingling sensation over an entire half of my body, to the point where I could no longer grasp my pencil with my hand to write legibly. This lasted for several minutes afterwards, and abated very slowly until I finally regained control of my hand. I wouldn’t say the sensation was either pleasurable or painful, just very curious and unusual.

It didn’t happen as strongly in subsequent instances, and eventually I stopped paying attention when it might have happened again. But in recent years I’ve rediscovered ASMR, thanks to a huge community of ASMR YouTubers who make videos that attempt to trigger these responses deliberately. And for me, certain types of triggers have a very relaxing, even therapeutic effect.

For my money, the best ASMR videos of all time are the “Departure” series, made by a channel called ASMRrequests. Even though there are only two “episodes” of this series, their combination of subtle, understated ASMR triggers with an engaging science fiction roleplay theme, as well as outstanding video production quality, makes them absolute genius-level videos, and I can admit to watching them again and again before going to sleep. Ally Maque, the young woman behind ASMRrequests, has explained that her partner at the time was responsible for the video production (and possibly the script?), but this makes the videos no less impressive. It’s a bit of a shame that the pressures and responsibilities of life seem to have put an end to any future episodes of Departure. If Ally is reading this, and wants to collaborate on additional episodes, hit me up!

Seeing the congressional hearing about UAPs was a fun diversion. I prefer to use the original name “UFO”, because switching to “UAP” is clearly an attempt to dodge the stigma that “UFO” has accumulated, and I don’t think “UAP” deserves to get away with it so easily.

What’s funny about the current UFO discourse is just how unimaginative it is, even after all this time. We’re well into the 21st century, but UFO evangelists are still stuck in the 1950s Hollywood conception of UFOs, i.e. a literal flying saucer piloted by aliens that are basically humanoid with long limbs and an enlarged head. Oh sorry, it’s not a flying saucer, it’s a “tic-tac” now:

And, sorry, it’s no longer a saucer, but a “black cube inside of a clear sphere.” A huge improvement, to be sure.

I’m not an expert in aeronautics, and I don’t claim to have an “explanation” for the tic-tac footage, but I am an expert in bullshit (giving it and taking it), and can offer a rough guideline for inoculating yourself against these UFO claims:

• Take the probability of extraterrestrial vehicles being able to travel interstellar distances and reaching our planet.
• Multiply by the likelihood of them looking and behaving exactly like we’ve always wanted them to.
• Multiply by the likelihood of them proceeding to clumsily float in mid-air, enough to be considered an airspace hazard by the military pilots who have “seen” them, but never seen by commercial pilots or anyone on the ground.
• Multiply by the likelihood of them being clumsy enough to crash occasionally, so that their “biologic” tissues could be collected, without anyone else noticing.
• Multiply by the likelihood of the U.S. government being competent enough to cover up anything related to these phenomena, for an indefinite amount of time, in a culture that’s desperate for these claims to be true.
• And now, consider how powerful, how incontrovertible, how convincing the evidence for such a UFO would need to be, to make up for the infinitesimal likelihood of each of the above points. But what do we have instead? Verbal testimony, hearsay, and grainy sensor footage (of course!), in an age of ubiquitous smartphone cameras, quadcopters, and satellites.

This is why I’m squarely in the Michael Shermer camp of capital-S skepticism regarding UFOs. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and telling everyone that “We know people who have seen things!” doesn’t quite meet the Sagan standard, even if it’s told under oath to Congress.

Did you know: If you want to buy SD cards that have enhanced longevity (e.g. for use in a dash cam or any device with a lot of write cycles), do not purchase plain old SD cards that are readily available on Amazon, even if they are marketed as “high endurance” cards. These are merely marketing terms, and these SD cards still use MLC (multi-level cell) technology that packs more data at the expense of performance and longevity, making the cards cheaper. Instead, if you have the budget for it, you should splurge on industrial-grade SD cards, available from electronics suppliers like Mouser, which use SLC (single-level cells). These cards are quite a bit more expensive, but worth the peace of mind.

I’ve been watching a lot of Russian media lately, and been enjoying many long-form conversations (such as Tell Gordeeva on YouTube), many of which have an anti-war sentiment. Katerina Gordeeva has recently been labeled a “foreign agent” by the Russian government, which is what happens to any prominent figure who is critical of Russia’s actions in Ukraine (or Russia’s actions in anything, really), regardless of whether it’s a YouTube host, television personality, actor, artist, politician, and so on. Gordeeva is now legally required to preface her videos with a disclaimer that she is indeed a foreign agent, and now very likely has cause to fear for her safety. For all the faults of our life in the U.S., the First Amendment is something to be thankful for. I have also actively tried to seek out long-form content that speaks in defense of the invasion, but haven’t been able to find anything that isn’t rooted in the same propaganda and revisionist history as what Vladimir Vladimirovich himself lays out in his speeches.