markjgsmith

Short note this morning. The world went all yah yah yah everything yesterday. It was crazy. Literally a bloke in the shop cafe for 30 minutes on the telephone the only word he said was 'yah'. I was trying to write a blog post, got most of the way through it but eventually it was just too distracting so saved what I had and started quietly listening to podcasts. That caused the world to go even more yah in various ways, and eventually sparrow people sparrow attacking me. I placed my hand on my bag in the shape of a peace sign and just sat still, waiting for the storm to pass.

But it didn’t pass. It just got worse and worse and worse. I realised this had been happening in one way or another for days but was just peaking. I started moving really really slowly, since there is nothing else I could do. I’m not a sparrow or a sparrow person, so eventually going along with that flow just gets dangerous.

I realised that the one thing I needed to do was the newsletter. I’d been sort of getting blocked doing that for days at this point, but just decided to write a 1 paragraph issue. Weird thing was that as soon as I started, all the sparrow attacks and blocking and what have you completely stopped.

It’s ridiculus. They constantly block me from doing the thing, to force you into doing the minimal thing, then they are infinitely upset that there is only a minimal thing.

Then suprise suprise in the evening when I went to publish the issue, for whatever reason everything on my device was taking ages and ages to load. It took more than twice as long as usual. I got it done eventually, so it’s all scheduled and waiting to be sent out. Kept calm. I think the keeping calm really gets up the world’s nose, because it doesn’t fit in with the warpathing.

The world is yah blocking everything yet again. Then blaming it all on me. #

They’ve started turning the internet on and off, while telling me 'pain', and they have ensured the puppy has pee'd in the place where I can lean against the wall at the internet place, thus ensuring I will be in pain if I am online.

Peace vietnam peace ✌️☮️🕊 #

Grand slams

This clip of Francisco Lindor’s grand slam in the eastern conference playoffs made it’s way to me via the ether. I don’t play or watch baseball anymore, but I sure used to. I’m not at all up to speed with the current baseball season, or indeed any season for the past 30 years, but at one point I totally was.

I knew loads of player stats, would go around to friends houses to watch games on elaborate old school enormous satellite systems to watch games. I collected baseball cards. Tops, Fleer, other brands I can’t remember now. I would endlessly play 80s and early 90s baseball video games. Hiting a grand slam was THE thing you were always trying, and usually failing, to do. Over and over and over.

I also played all through my teenage years. I must have done 10 seasons. Practiced multiple times per week, year in year out, played competition games every weekend, award ceremonies, trophies, 6ft bubble gum, giant pizzas, bbq hot dogs and hamburgers, american sodas, the whole thing. I was very into it. In later years I made it onto some all star teams. I spent hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours out on the field, in blistering hot, freezing cold, wet and miserable weather. And in the duggout waiting to get an at bat.

The sound of a baseball bat connecting with a baseball is lodged so deep in my consciousness and attached in some way to all those memories, that when I hear and see a grand slam, even if I haven’t been following the season or any games for 30 freeking years, it all instantly comes flooding back, my eye brows raise, and some form of pure elation, happiness, and togetherness shines through me. I’m transported back in time, jumping up from my seat along with every god darn person in the stadium, arms raised, fists in the air, roars of joy.

It’s fucking insane how the things you do when you are young stay with you for the rest of your life. It’s sort of similar for other sports, I watched a lot of football, i.e. soccer, at university, in the pub, so that’s in some way similar for me, even if these days I don’t really watch any sports at all.

If you've never been into sports, perhaps for you it was something else like music. I have a similarish feeling when I hear incredible loud electric guitars.

Those moments are some of the best things about being alive. Let’s remember to keep those moments in our future techno world.

I don’t get so many grand slams these days, but my hope is that at least some of you out there reading this will remember that grand slams exist. That in itself will be a gram slam. #

Simply Refreshing (Issue #185)

This week’s newsletter is out!

In this week’s edition:

Freedom tech, future of etherium, AI friends, even bigger tech, mental health, Wordpress drama, Cuban & Musk, BTC mining, OpenAI, Islam, social media, Uk politics

Issue details:

• Title: Simply Refreshing
• Issue: 185
• Page: issue webpage

Another awesome issue of the newsletter. #

Funny old world

I just got gifted 3 black T-Shirts, from a vietnamese gentlemen that lives here.

I see him quite regularly going for walks along the canal. So many strange things happen to me here in Vietnam, especially the past several months, that when something genuine happens, an act of kindness, a part of me automatically assumes it’s some sort of trick.

Of course I try to not let on that I’m deep in fight or flight mode, and it adds to the already quite big language barier awkwardness. Funny old world sometimes, as the saying goes.

I really did need some T-Shirts. They have a logo on the back but it looks quite cool, nothing garish. It doesn’t appear to have some strange double meaning. They are actually really quite good quality.

It appears to be ok, for the moment at least I’m thankful for the gift :) #

Well that didn’t take long. Barely an hour since I got gifted the 3 t-shirts and already the vultures of the gang stalker hive mind have decended and are twisting and contorting reality into alternative false realities. Rather predictably the false narrative that appears to be being spun is that I didn’t pay for the tshirts, with random passers by shouting 'money!' in my direction as they pass by as I make my way back towards the internet place to post another blog post I wrote for the world.

For what it’s worth I’m absolutely certain the bloke that gifted me the tshirts wasn’t asking for money. He approached me while I was sitting listening to a podcast. Asked me if I wanted a tshirt. Kept pointing to the wet tshirt I was drying. Said he had 3 tshirts. He asked me several times if I would be here if he went to get them. I told him I would be there for at least an hour.

I must have said to him I had no money to spend on tshirts 5 or 6 times. I even made the international sign for money rubbing fingers together while saying 'no money', and he definitely gestured that it wasn’t a problem. He went to get the tshirts, came back with them, never asked for money, I said thank you several times, he left smiling.

But the whispers that travel along the social layer morph and invert very quickly.

And on the way back up to the internet place, a man apparently talking on a mobile phone, saying 'no-one no-one' followed by an evil laugh, as I walked past. A hundred meters further up the road, some sort of red tshirt moving crew moving boxes. Right after them, a poor scrawney dog limps past in what looked like an aweful lot of pain. The dog had one testicle, it was enormous, the size of a gratefruit, hanging down between it’s legs. Extreme intimidation much?

And now food goading and angry foot stomping by locals that have a history of spining their false naratives, anger goading and all the usual bullcrap.

Why do you invert everything vietnam? Why do you turn everything into darkness?

✌️☮️🕊 #

It was a bit difficult to see the end of a blog post and the beginning of the next post. To remedy this I’ve added delimiters in the style of a Bash Heredoc. I think this fits in quite well with my ethos. I’m a programmer who has mostly worked developing and maintaining systems on Linux. The closing tag links to an article describing heredocs so for the curious they can figure out the reason for the extra text.

For example you should be able to see the delimiters on:

• The everything page - All days will have delimiters at the start and end of blog post text]
• All blog post pages - All individual blog post pages will have the delimiters at the start and end of that blog post’s text