Starting job applications, continuing to write, hiking. So far so good.

One of the striking things about leaving academia was how much stress reduction has improved my physical health. My face is starting to recover from the stress and overwork. My body doesn’t feel tired all the time. My eyes aren’t on fire. The bags are, less baggy (poetic description, I know).

I hope I can stay the course and not replace one bad career with another.

I thought that myself and honestly I don’t know.

Love what you did here…but I don’t think the same logic applies to data centers.

Never played GW or GW2. Maybe I’ll hop onto this just for something new.

Of course! Thanks for asking for clarification.

How and where from? I’m curious!

Let’s go to the Dalles in lovely Oregon. There is a Google data center there that draws water from the public supplies. It draws so much in a day, that at times the need for water in the whole community outstrips the ability of infrastructure to supply water. So people in the area see their water slow or cease altogether. The water is drawn so fast and in such amounts, wells dry up as the water table drops.

Water does eventually evaporate or get discharged from said data center, but its not like adding it in is an instantaneous event. It also doesn’t reenter the same system. Like picking up flour and trying to drop it back in the bag. Some ends up on your counter.

The data center in the Dalles is one hell of a story, too, for reason beyond that.

https://www.opb.org/article/2026/01/15/as-googles-water-demands-grow-the-dalles-aims-to-pull-more-from-mount-hood-forest/

Doing OK. Haven’t landed on my feet yet, career wise, after quitting the Academy. But wow. My stress is way down. Joy way up. Time in the present with my family also way up. Working on my little slice of substack and podcasting has been more fun than money, which is fine for me at the moment.

I an lucky to have saved and have a supporting partner in all of this. So let me be clear that a reset is possible only because of that.

What…what the hell?

On further research, I had no idea CD Projekt Red sold GoG Games. CD Projekt sold GOG to its original co-founder, Michał Kiciński, in December 2025 for approximately $25.2 million. Did they go full Nazi after that or were they always suspect?

Either way, I’m downloading what I bought over the years and closing my account. No way I want to be anywhere near anything associated with Nazis.

Update: Downloaded my games, closed my account.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I2P doesn’t seem to fill the void. I think what is missing from that is the “norm” of the old internet. The internet was a playground with tons of hobby projects and experiments in its earlier days. I don’t see TOR, I2P, etc, building the same playground because the novelty and ease of access can’t be replicated.

It can be its own thing, and help alleviate the pressure of the contemporary internet, and that’s fine. But it won’t be what fixes the issue of dead internet or commercialization, or whatever we want to call it. That’ll take systemic change.

You’ve been through a lot and I enpathsize with you. I am happy to read this update.

Bots are, essentially, a virus. We are at the point now where they are killing the host. That is if they haven’t already moved us to the point of no return.

A new internet isn’t going to happen. We are stuck with the anonymous rage inducing or monetization system that took over because the systems of power let it.

AI customer service bots, which I know are soulless firewalls really more than helpers, are beyond frustrating.

They don’t care. They also are not stupid. Its both part of their upbringing and their character. But more importantly their entire moral, ethical, religious, and societal compass is pointed to “reap it all.”

They’ve been educated and had short term reinforced since they were in Pampers. “Short term profits,” “Can’t take it with you,” “yolo,” and other varieties of get it while you can. There’s also continued moral and religious approval for this behavior. Hell, they manufacture systems of approval when they can’t find it out in the world already. Thiel is masterful at this self deception.

Take for instance altruism. You had that altruism movement (the crypto bros went fill tilt on that, name escapes me at the moment) now its the “school moral ambition.” Its like Nietzsche’s worst philosophical nightmare come to bear. Doing good at the end of your life makes up for being a total nightmare during it. Make as much as you can as fast as you can so you can give a pittance back. That’s one style of justification the ultra rich like Gates give us.

The entire institution of contemporary wealth is both a mentality and world view. That’s hard to counter.

There are people who want violence. They relish in it because of the power. War, economic, domestic, people exist that want violence.

Look, I strive for peace because I’ve seen war. But the kind of violence being perpetrated on people, nature, and general “good” is well funded, unrestrained, and unrelenting. It’s beyond a war in the conventional sense. I believe more people are looking to meet that violence with violence because its the only option left.

I’m sorry. I read this as American Pessimism Germinating. I was all in.

So I’m glad that was not the case and that your seeds germinated! Congrats!

Gotta keep it alive since Netflix is actively trying to kill it.

Joking aside, great to see a game like this get new content.

Former professor here!

Students these days are fucked. Professors are fucked too. Two points about AI and one about grade inflation. I’ll keep this brief and give you three quick observations:

1. US, Canadian, and UK students are increasingly under pressure to pay more for everything. When you need to choose between working to pay rent and studying, you outsource to AI. Student athletes are, by far, the worst due to the exploitation opportunity athletics programs view them as. Practice more, study less, shop it to AI.
2. Student evaluations caused me more pain than anything else. I won a student curated Teacher of the Year award at my university. I’m good at teaching and love it. My student evals were from the ones that got bad grades. Those students spent more time challenging a C or below than actually studying. I know other professors grade inflate just to avoid bad evals and lost time. The eval system needs reform.
3. The rapidity in the decline in critical thinking, writing, and problem solving skills is shocking. One moment that sticks with me was when a student insisted Flint, MI didn’t have a water problem but a political leadership problem. OK, fair, explain. They just stared at their laptop blankly. Started typing. Read a chatgpt response. That stuck with me. They probably heard a talking point or used AI for their question and had zero understanding of the situation at all. Its my job to inform them and educate, but it was the blind reliance on AI as their rationalization and knowledge tool that stuck.

I’m writing more and reading more, yet horrified of what to do with the later half of my life. So mixed bag mentally this week. However, I’m back with a great personal trainer and gym, mountain biking again (oh wow it’s been a hot minute), and enjoying cedar trees and mountains. So pretty happy with the physical fitness in these surroundings. I do miss cycling everywhere though…doing it in truck-land is a bit harrowing.

Neocities.org is my new favorite surfing the web activity. I also have my author website there because its amazing.