Category: real life

low-priority throttle

This Terminal command to disable MacOS’s default “low-priority throttle” has been indispensible while backing up with Time Machine of late:

sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0

Leaving it on (“=1”) shunts the backup to the last in line for the CPU no matter what. My backup process, however, is a VIP club goer.

Would that I could control, with one simple line of code, the throttle on my darkest thoughts.…

continued...

(xtra)terrestrial vacation

The idea that alien life forms would conform to our dimensional perspectives and physics, and yet still leave themselves vulnerable to human weapons and hate, is naive.

“An Earthland vacation this light-year? Really?”

“I heard it’s pretty, and I always wanted to go.”

“Okay, but just remember to bring ‘sion-block-“

“Yes, I packed ‘sion-block!”



continued...

70-year shutter click


My IRL family, Maplewood, NJ, 1981 [me: 2nd from bottom left; paternal grandparents Ida & Morris: top row left; self-timer composition, Kodak stock, format unknown]

Down in Florida last month, I began to organize my parents’ 6 bins of photographs, the earliest of which reached back into the 1880s. Aside from being an invaluable record of my family history, the trove also provides, upstream, a fractal of the entire era of mass manual photography.…

continued...

The No Net Kids

“Hey Westy, when you grew up with no internet, what on Earth did you do for fun?”

Action Park, Vernon, NJ 1982

Caracas, Venezuela 1980

Myrtle Beach, SC 1981

lol. Wouldn’t trade my 80s childhood for all the TikTok in China.

The Former Musician’s Blues

a former musician, surrounded by destroyed instruments, under a pink sky, photographed by William Eggleston

DALL-E 2 AI INPUT: “A former musician, surrounded by destroyed instruments, under a pink sky, photographed by William Eggleston” (2022)

Someone randomly came into one of my social feeds today with “former musician” in their bio, and the notion sent me, well, riffing…

What, exactly, constitutes a “former” musician?

Did they never “make it?”…

continued...

Warring Thoughts

the trick is to get paid for just being you

to “turn a trick” is to be paid to be someone else’s “you”

adopting war terminology for sports (“bomb,” “shotgun,” “blitz,” “strikers,” “defense,” “offence,” “flanks,” “attack,” “sacking,” etc) turned war into sports

Now, those not fighting are said to be “on the sidelines.”…

continued...

everywhere lies truth

There’s no such thing as “living a lie.” You live your truth and only your truth, and enjoy or suffer the fallout, whatever your truth creates.

The phrase isn’t, “you’re living your lie.” It’s, “you’re living a lie.”

At the very least, if it was your lie, you’d have some agency

If there are lives “lived in lies,” then life itself is devalued

The “problem” today lol isn’t that everywhere there’s lies.…

continued...

Another Post About Peace

medium mirror: https://westyreflector.medium.com/…


It’s absurd that war is just “declared,” whereas peace requires “negotiation.”

Peace, for some reason, always requires a “process.”

Sometimes you have to “sue” for peace. Taking someone to court, in a way, makes you an aggressor, so, in a way, litigating the end of a war turns aggressors into defendants, and defenders into plaintiffs.…

continued...

Rainbow Needle / Tennis Thread


Words are my thread; music is my needle

I haven’t written too much on the internet in the last few years because I am afraid of what…

  • …was
  • …wasn’t
  • …will be
  • …is

This internal poll will be open for the rest of eternity, or until eternity runs out of time, power, or storage

To run out of storage is to run out of time.…

continued...

metaphor / material

I have quite a bit of fun losing tennis matches as long as I take a ton of risks.

The zone that takes me to a place of calm courage happens when I finally displace the notion I’m playing against someone, with the notion that I’m playing with someone.

My mind and body also need to find a space of equilibration, where body forgets materiality and mind forgets gravity.…

continued...

Challenge The Thought

all strains of a virus begin life as a variant.
Not all variants, however, become new strains

so it is with intelligence as with disease

all intelligence begins life as a thought exercise
not all thought exercises, however, become intelligence

The true epidemic of covid19 is to be overwhelmed by absolute certainty

Joe Rogan is a thought exercise in existential uncertainties, rendered in flesh

Canceling comedians is, in effect, an attempt to cancel laughter, and to shame those laughing.…

continued...

Freedom of Silence

Why silence anyone, lest we’re ok silencing ourselves as an unintended consequence?

There should be, however, a corollary right to free speech that confers the right to silent spaces.

Freedom of speech = freedom from speech

i.e., Freedom of Silence

#stoprightthere

a running list of useless phrases and rhetorical filler

I will say this…
I think that…
You know, it’s funny…
The funny thing is…
In my opinion…
Let me be clear…
Let me be perfectly clear…
Just so we’re clear…
I honestly think…
…literally…
I believe that…
In my view…
Personally, I…
I personally think…
I personally believe…
In my world…
In a perfect world…
I mean,…
I deeply believe…
I firmly believe…
My personal theory is…
If you want my take, I…
I’m no expert, but…
I don’t know about that, but…
I have an opinion that is probably controversial…
I don’t know him personally, but…
I’ve never been there, but…
I’ve never had to experience that, but…
I cannot emphasize enough…
It’s obvious that…
I’m pretty sure…
Here’s the thing…
I obviously think…
Truth be told,…
It goes without saying…
This is textbook ________ …
You know what I mean?…

continued...