A Geek Goes Flying

Multitasking What Constant Multitasking Does to Your Brain , from December 2025: “When we multitask, our attentional resources are being stretched to their limit and we are more prone to errors ... multitasking actually makes us less efficient, more stressed, and eventually, mentally drained. If you try to take on too much or multitask all day, your brain eventually runs out of bandwidth to focus clearly.” The entire article is worth a read; including: Here’s how it affects your brain When you’re constantly switching between tasks, your brain enters a state of cognitive overload. You might notice: Brain fog Irritability Forgetfulness Trouble focusing Mental exhaustion by the end of the day And: Try this easy fix You don’t have to eliminate multitasking completely, but being intentional about when and how you focus can make a big difference. Here’s how to help your brain recover: Batch similar tasks. Group emails, calls, or errands so your brain stays in one mode longer. Use timers ...

Prior: “You’re not lazy. Your brain just needs a different system.” I keep encountering these ads on Facebook, for, whatever, ADHD planners or Xennial home organization apps or ... They state they're based on research from Stanford or MIT or Harvard or ... [], and that they’ll build a solution tailored for whatever it is that makes you unique. The sales pitch always starts with some sort of shame-type thing but then moves quickly to “it’s not your fault - you didn’t fail the system, the system failed you! It wasn’t built for a brain that grew up analog and transitioned to digital.” If you take the bait you’re funneled to a set of “diagnostic questions” and then the processing theater (“Analyzing your responses … 37% … creating your individualized plan … 72% …”). Then email capture and the dark patterns - the free trial but high monthly cost - slashed in half if you buy before the fake counter reaches zero ... or the relatively low “monthly” cost paid every six months or ... I was t...

A happy place Reading Linked To Lower Stress, Better Brain Health . Good thing I have the jail broken Kindle and the Kobo and ... I’m awash in eReaders . Now to actually use them reliably. (I just picked up a Tom Bihn Side Kick  (Nebulous Grey over Cobalt), a 3 L crossbody / shoulder bag that also tucks into my Nomad 16 perfectly - no more cheap felt or vinyl inserts. And it perfectly fits the 6.8" Kindle or an iPad mini 8 or ... 

Bonjour logo I somewhat regularly have to log in to a WiFi connected machine (they vary, so DHCP assigned addresses would be a PITA to juggle and remember). I have a static IP macOS box I can ssh or Screen Share into, and from there I’ve usually danced a jig of  arp -a  or  last  to try to find the IP address of that box, so I can connect to it directly. Apple’s Bonjour [née Rendezvous, an implementation of zeroconf ] shows the machines, since they’re Macs, but the command line tools for that aren’t part of my muscle memory.  dns-sd -Gv4v6  doesn’t really roll off the tongue... I was today years old when I realized if I just append  .local  to the machine name, good ol’  ping  will give me the address: % ping -c1 BigMac.local      PING BigMac.local (172.16.345.99): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 172.16.345.99: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.785 ms I’m a maroon .

The jaunty sing-songy voice and music, the overly cute animation, the crass insertion into your nightmarescape of this dog water fountain ad ... I can’t even. (There’s one I just saw for GetQuietLab that’s in the same vein.) This is not the AI future we were promised. Or maybe it is. I don’t know anymore. 

Reading glasses I’ve hit that point where I don’t absolutely need glasses, but late at night tired eyes appreciate a mild set of readers. I have some cheap ones¹ I picked up from Zenni that work fine, but over six months or so they got foggier and foggier no matter what cleaning spray (Residual Oil Remover, Koala Eyeglass Lens Cleaner Spray, ShaggyMax OptiMist Prime, &c.) I tried. All of those are great screen cleaners for laptops, monitors, TVs, iPads ... But they just seemed to move the smudges around, no matter how fresh and clean the microfiber cloth I was using was. Somewhere I read that a drop of Dawn dish detergent and a bowl of warm water would get the job done. It absolutely does. I lightly rubbed the lenses with my fingers in the bowl, and used a Koala cloth to dry them, and they’re like brand new again. In somewhat related news, my 512GB iPhone 16 Pro is low on storage, and I have ~160GB of videos and photos. Need to offload them. Not going to pay monthly for iCloud to ...

I’m irrationally saddened by Jackie’s passing early yesterday morning . I wasn’t nearly as devout a camera watcher as many, and I’m trying really hard to not anthropomorphize her (the Facebook pleas for her remains to be taken to their habitat so Shadow can get “closure” and similar calls are just ... yeah). But it sure was something to watch her and Shadow raise multiple broods (even if the weather took one last year before it ever had a chance). Summary of the eagles in Big Bear Valley .