September 2026 Infinite Omphalos
I’m having a harder time than usual getting back into the groove of the school year. My rhythms are off, I can’t find things that I need without a lot of digging, and my sleep patterns are completely disrupted. Some life transitions happen slowly, so that you barely notice things have changed until you’re nearly there. Others tear through you like a storm, jolting you from one place to another without enough time to process.
This one is neither. It’s supposed to be planned, practiced, and entirely manageable. Everything is still getting done, of course; it just feels more difficult than usual. Perhaps I’m more sensitive to it this year, but there’s also a little part of me that wonders if the reason might be that I’m getting older. If so, I’m OK with it. That’s yet another transition that I have to get used to.
My Picks
Blogger Jodi Ettenberg’s collection of links, some of which you may end up seeing reappear here from time to time. She’s a voracious reader, interested in finding great things that aren’t widely distributed, and I can spend days going through her picks. Highly recommended.
A Netflix limited series based on one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters, something I can’t believe I knew nothing about. The story is both horrifying and riveting, and there are so many layers to it, including class, bureaucracy, authority, and the selfless sacrifice of people who put themselves in danger to save others.
My current gaming obsession is a Tetris-roguelike. Tiles descend and are matched, like Tetris, but monsters and weapons are introduced, along with an assortment of items and powers that can help you advance. The full version hasn’t been released, but the link above is a sample that works in-browser, plus there’s a more extensive playtest version available on Steam (also free for now).
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a site that lets you search their database of police tech deployment in the United States. You can also view it on a map. Why am I not surprised that my hometown has automated license plate readers? It’s probably because of the surveillance drones I watched the police use on us during our 4th of July fireworks. Sigh.
Recently Published
Anthropic, makers of my preferred LLM, Claude, are starting to place invisible watermarks on text processed by their models. This means there’s a good chance some of what I publish on my site will get flagged, so I decided to get out ahead of it and publish an AI Disclosure. I also suspect there’s a hidden incentive for them to do this, beyond their stated EU law compliance.
Why Am I So Defensive about AI?
After publishing my AI Disclosure, I realized that there’s actually quite a bit I post that isn’t processed by AI beyond basic grammar, flow, and spell checking. If that’s the case, then why am I so defensive about justifying my use of AI to help maintain a personal, noncommercial website? I’m still not entirely sure, but I have a few theories.
In the Groove
I get giddy when I discover an awesome band that’s new to me, and find out that they have a deep catalog to explore. Why didn’t I know about them? What else is out there, waiting? There’s not enough time or luck to find all of the music I might love. I just have to deal with that.
On the other hand, there are so many fantastic bands I’ve been lucky enough to come across that now seem lost to history, forgotten by all but a few die-hard fans who (like me) are getting older by the day. One of my playlists recently put on Day After Day by Badfinger, and it stopped me in my tracks. It’s so good, and just one great song out of many.
The story of the band is sad (they were on the Beatles’ Apple label, and when it collapsed, the fallout exposed massive fraud by their management, which led to tragedy), but the songs they created elevated classic rock to a new level, combining thunderous stacks of sound with some of the most beautiful melodies, harmonies, and lyrics I’ve ever heard. It’s quintessential early power pop.
If you haven’t heard of them and dig this kind of stuff (or need a reminder), check out songs like Day After Day, No Matter What, Baby Blue, and Come and Get It. To my taste, it just doesn’t get much better than this.
Until Next Time
I remember feeling age affect my abilities back in my thirties, and thinking that I was getting old. Now I’m approaching my sixties, and I still feel pretty young. Change is inevitable, even if I might wish things would stay the same for just a little while. I hope whatever changes you might be going through aren’t too difficult to deal with, and that the transition to the new season brings plenty of chances to enjoy the days.
See you next month!