This is a reflection of what building friendships and close relationships is like for me. Mental health makes everything much harder, but I keep trying.

it shines and blazes
such light and warmth
stories told round the hearth
cold nights kept a safe distance away
beauty in chaotic dancing patterns
it promises everything all at once
no regard for consequences or the future
just passion in the moment
no foresight, only enthralling abandon
its wake is ash
empty, cold, dead
no energy
never burn again
it destroys what it loves
what it needs
not because it wants to
because it is
destruction guised as passion

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

All of us know the feeling; some of us have felt it more intensely than others; some of us have to continue to live with it daily.

When was the first time you really became aware of it? What did it feel like? How did it play out?

I will be releasing a beta version of Intergrid in the near future, before New Year.

The first thing I need is someone to buy a domain name from.

I'm looking for a reasonable yearly price for the common generic TLDs ($10~$20), combined with reliability of support.

The only previous experience I had was with GoDaddy, and I had no issues with them. I have, however, heard stories of terrible support service (which I never used, for lack of need), and I'd rather not support a company of that level of service. (Nevermind that I bear strong dislike for post-service spam.)

The second thing I need is someone to host it.

Ideally, I would host it on a personal server, which would probably be a Pi-like platform, because I like the idea of owning the host as far as personal projects are concerned. I have little idea of how viable it is, or whether it's a better option for me than renting server space at the moment.

Lacking that, I'd like to have a EU-based hosting provider with reasonably-cheap ($10~$15) basic-level plans. Since the beta of Intergrid is local-storage-only, having a database hosted or supplied is not an issue at the moment. Low time-to-connect is important.

From GiveDirectly's blog:

In 2014, GiveDirectly partnered with academic researchers to launch our largest study ever in Kenya. The ultimate goal: find out how cash transfers affect local economies, including nearby non-recipients, enterprises, and markets. Now, in 2019, the results of this research have been released.

Abstract of the paper:

How large economic stimuli generate individual and aggregate responses is a central question in economics, but has not been studied experimentally. We provided one-time cash transfers of about USD 1000 to over 10,500 poor households across 653 randomized villages in rural Kenya. The implied fiscal shock was 15 percent of local GDP. We find large impacts on consumption and assets for recipients. Importantly, we document large positive spillovers on non-recipient households and firms, and minimal price inflation. We estimate a local fiscal multiplier of 2.6. We interpret welfare implications through the lens of a simple household optimization framework.

Some interesting tidbits from the paper:

Interestingly, sales increased without noticeable changes in firm investment behavior (beyond a modest increase in inventories), and sales do not increase differentially for firms owned by cash recipient households relative to nonrecipients. Both patterns suggest a demand-led rather than an investment-led expansion in economic activity.

[...]

We next examine how these changes affect untreated households. Despite not receiving transfers, they too exhibit large consumption expenditure gains: their annualized consumption expenditure is higher by 13% eighteen months after transfers began, an increase roughly comparable to the gains contemporaneously experienced by the treated households themselves.

(Emphasis added.)

[...]

Average price inflation is 0.1%, and even during periods with the largest transfers, estimated price effects are less than 1% and precisely estimated across all categories of goods.

[...]

Real output increased, and yet there is at most limited evidence of increases in the employment of land (which is in fixed supply), labor, or capital. One plausible, albeit speculative, possibility is that the utilization of these factors was “slack” in at least some enterprises (Lewis 1954). This seems plausible because in the retail and manufacturing sectors, where output responses were concentrated, the typical firm has a single employee (i.e. the proprietor), suggesting that integer constraints may often bind. In addition, many enterprises operate “on demand” in the sense that they produce only when they have customers, and the average non-agricultural enterprise sees just 1.7 customers per hour. In addition to retail, much manufacturing in this setting is “on demand;” for example, a mill owner waits for customers to bring grain and then grinds it for them. The existence of slack may help account for the large multiplier we document, as has also recently been argued in US data, especially in poorer US regions (Michaillat and Saez 2015; Murphy 2017).

Givedirectly blog - Full paper (pdf)

From the transcript:

By 1988, for the first time, more fast-food orders were taken at a drive-through window than at the restaurant. And this was a problem for the wimpy french fry because by the time you got home from the drive-through, the fries were no good.

[...]

So back then - almost 20, 25 years ago - Lamb Weston invented a coating called Stealth, which was their secret coating that you couldn't see and you couldn't tell was on the french fry, but it lasted - it was crispier longer, up to 12 to 15 minutes.

[...]

But this potato company has a new problem now - delivery. And a 12- to 15-minute lasting Stealth french fry isn't going to cut it because delivery takes longer than a drive-through. The average delivery wait time in a busy city is 20 to 30 minutes because drivers pick up multiple orders and make multiple stops.

[...]

They're starting to pitch these fries to fast food chains now. So they're not in stores yet, but Deb says they could be in a couple months. You won't know it's a crispy on delivery fry just like you don't know when you're eating a stealth fry. You'll just know you had a better french fry delivery experience.

More

I wanted to write about self-forgiveness because it's such a hard thing for me to do. Past mistakes and trespasses stick in my mind for decades, and it's so hard for me to shake them. This work is an attempt at expressing that difficulty.

Down in the foothills the peak is so perfect
Covered in pure white snow
Nary a tree in sight
The peak carves a visage in the sky
In the clouds
It just is, it exists peacefully in its austere authority
Calm, serene
Impossible
Yet I yearn to climb
To ascend
Down in the foothills among the trees
The greenof the hills
I make my preparations
Breath
Training
Gear
I practiceand I meditate
I meditate upona life
A life of mistakes and triumphs
Each breath preparing and steeling

It's time to begin my climb
Each step and the air, the precious vital air, thins
Lungs emptying and muscles weakening
And yet I continue
Not quite undaunted, but I continue
The views are stunning
Yet I don't see them, eyes ever on the peak
Visualizing success, not the process
It's so cold
Bitterly, viscerally cold
There's no air
Even a yogi must stop for air
But there's no air
The ground slick with snow and ice
Snow and ice with the oxygen I need
Sealed away in the mystery of the bonds
Just as beautiful as it is inaccessible

But I continue my climb
Slipping and falling, the rocks cut and score
Gashes and bruises amass
I take a moment and reflect
Is it worth it?
Shall I ever ascend?
And as I slip into meditation, I slip down the mountain
All progress lost
The world turns around, up and down
I lose my breath
And land, dizzy and hurt, down the bottom
Even further from the peak than when I started.

Tapped out on my phone in an Uber on the way to D&D. I write about more than love, I promise!

the water laps at the dam
seeking egress, seeking progress
everyone inside so thirsty
life affirming liquid
but the dam
the wall we built to keep ourselves safe
our salvation
our condemnation
seemed a good idea at the time
but all our other crimes against ourselves did too
how are we so smart yet so stupid
it hurts
it fucking hurts
life without love may as well be an empty gift on Christmas morning
but we all do it to ourselves every day
so many boundaries and rules and norms
all because we’re too afraid to get hurt
too afraid to be ourselves
too afraid to realize ourselves
too afraid to give one another the best gift we can