Morning music…
Posted in Music
Avett Brothers – No Hard Feelings (play this at my funeral, if I have one)
Discretion Is the Better Part of Valor….
IMWI ’26 Training Post
I didn’t push things this week, but I still got in some good workouts. Sometimes the smart move is backing off a bit rather than forcing progress. Base phase has been feeling more like a build phase lately, and I’d rather slow that down than risk digging a hole this early.
Run 🏃
- Workouts: 2
- Total Distance: 10.63 miles
- Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
This is where I missed the bigger workout. I was supposed to run another six miles on Friday, which would’ve put me three miles ahead of last week. But it was pouring rain, and I don’t like treadmills. Since I already jumped three miles the week before, I’m okay not progressing as much this time around.
Swim 🏊
- Workouts: 1
- Total Distance: 2,000 yards
- Total Time: 41 minutes
Another missed workout here (today). My wrists are killing me, so discretion seemed like the better option. The last thing I want is to push through something small and turn it into something bigger.
Bike 🚴
- Workouts: 5
- Total Distance: 60.67 miles
- Total Time: 3 hours 50 minutes
This is why I don’t mind missing the run and swim. I added more cycling. Nothing taxing — two were commute days, which still works out to about an hour in Zone 2 for the day. The long ride yesterday was two hours with 91% in Zone 2, exactly what base training is supposed to look like.
Total Training Time 🧮
- Total Time This Week: 6 hours 16 minutes
Relative Effort 📈
- Total Weekly Effort: 622
That’s actually a drop from the last two weeks, but it landed right in my training zone instead of way above it. That’s a good thing. I don’t want to overtrain in the first month of base.
Reflections ✍️
Overall, this was a smart week. Not perfect, but controlled. I’m building fitness without forcing the numbers upward every single week. That’s how you make it through a long training cycle without breaking down.
Next week should be another solid one.
The Only Way to Win is Not to Play…
Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky
I was listening to a podcast today about a guy who figured out how to hack the Spotify system. His scheme was simple in concept: create a massive library of AI-generated music and then run a program that streams it over and over so he collects the royalties. (Darknet Diaries. Melody Fraud)
I’m only partway through the episode, but the story had already gone in a direction that made my head hurt.
Before he even got to the Spotify part, he was explaining how his company used to “hack” social media platforms for clients. Their job wasn’t security hacking—it was attention hacking. They figured out ways to manipulate the systems that decide what goes viral, what gets likes, and what gets pushed into people’s feeds.
One example stuck with me. They would hide “like” or “follow” buttons inside image carousels. You’d click on a picture, thinking you were just flipping to the next photo. Instead, the click secretly followed some random page they were promoting on Facebook, or triggered a YouTube video playing in the background to inflate the view count. Then, when you clicked again, the image would finally change as you expected.
You never even knew you’d been used.
And that’s just one trick.
On top of that, there are the algorithms that decide who goes viral on YouTube, X, Instagram, and TikTok—systems that can be manipulated by companies, influencers, or even the platforms themselves.
Then layer in the bots.
Bots generating engagement.
Bots amplifying outrage.
Bots pushing political agendas.
Bots pretending to be real people arguing with each other.
Add in PR firms, marketing agencies, and even governments that deliberately stir controversy because outrage spreads faster than truth. At some point you start wondering: how much of what I’m seeing online is even real?
I see it happening to blogs I used to enjoy. Sites that used to be thoughtful have slowly turned into clickbait factories. Rage bait. Headlines designed to make you angry enough to click. They don’t care if they leave the internet a little worse than they found it. They just want the traffic.
And honestly, I’m tired of playing in that ecosystem.
So I’m opting out. No bots. No shady tricks designed to make me follow something I didn’t choose. No manipulated “viral” moments. No algorithm pushing outrage into my day.
There’s a line from the movie WarGames where the computer finally realizes something about nuclear war strategy.
“The only winning move is not to play.”
That’s kind of where I am with most social media. I’m just not playing anymore.
One of the nice things about running my own blog is that there’s no algorithm deciding what you see. No bots trying to game the system. No engagement tricks.
It’s just words on a page.
If you happen to stop by and read them, great.
If not, that’s fine too.
At least it’s real.
(While some might claim this is novel and we live in some particularly shitty information era, I could’ve used “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” from the movie Network back from 1976. I think this is just a continued slide, but not fundamentally different)
If You Can’t Find the Light, Be the Light…
Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky
The other week I joined a new (to me) social network just to see what it was about. I heard about it on a podcast and figured I’d poke around for a bit.
The network is called the Fediverse. If you’ve never heard of it, the easiest way to think about it is this: instead of one big company running a social media site (like Facebook, Instagram, or X), the Fediverse is made up of thousands of independently run servers that all talk to each other. Each server has its own community, rules, and vibe, but users can still interact across servers. It’s decentralized social media. Think email, but for social networks.
In theory, it sounds great. No single company controlling everything. Communities are built around interests. A chance to escape the worst parts of the big platforms.
So I joined a server hosted by the podcast hosts.
I’ll admit, at first I didn’t really know how to use it. The interface felt a little like Twitter from ten years ago, and the culture seemed… intense.
What I found in the beginning was more of the same thing you find almost everywhere online: endless political rants and hot takes. Usually from one side of the aisle. And it ranged from far that side to farther that side to farthest that side.
That was disappointing.
But I kept experimenting and eventually learned how to mute hashtags and follow only the things I wanted. Once I did that, my feed improved dramatically. Suddenly, it was posts about hobbies, music, random observations, and people sharing things they enjoyed.
In other words, the internet I actually want.
Ironically, though, it wasn’t something on the Fediverse that made me rethink it. It was an Instagram post.
I wish I had saved it because I can’t find it now, but the basic message stuck with me. The post talked about how easy it is to look around and see all the darkness in the world. The bad news. The anger. The constant outrage.
And let’s be honest, that’s what a lot of social media has become. A place to wallow in whatever the worst thing happening today might be.
But the post ended with something simple:
Look for the light. Look for the good things.
And then the line that stuck with me:
If you can’t find the light, be the light.
Yes, I realize there are some pretty strong religious undertones there, and I’m 100% fine with that.
That quote actually prompted me to clean up my Fediverse feed. I muted political hashtags and followed good-news type tags. Travel. Music. Hobby stuff. People posting interesting or funny things.
But when I mentioned I wanted to keep my feed mostly non-political, the responses rolled in.
Apparently, I was “living in a bubble.”
Apparently, I needed to be political everywhere because of tyranny.
Apparently, choosing not to engage in constant online political debate was some kind of civic failure.
I get my news from plenty of places. I read across the spectrum. I stay informed.
What I don’t need is political commentary on every single website I visit.
Eventually,I just decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. I deleted the account. To be fair, I probably could have stayed and curated it better. But the moment had already done its work on me.
Because I realized something.
I already have a place on the internet that I control.
This blog.
The other nice thing about a personal blog is that there’s no algorithm. No company is trying to feed me outrage because outrage keeps people scrolling. No system boosts the most extreme voices because they generate engagement. What you see here is simply what I choose to write and what you choose to read.
No trending topics.
No rage bait.
No “you might also like this argument.”
Just a quiet corner of the internet.
Now, I know I complain here sometimes. I whine about getting older. I write pity-party posts. I talk about injuries, triathlon training mistakes, random annoyances, and occasionally yell at clouds.
That’s not going to completely disappear.
But I’d like this space to lean toward something else.
I’d like it to be a small corner of the internet that’s a little lighter.
Not fake positivity. Not pretending the world is perfect.
Just a place that occasionally highlights the good stuff. Music. Funny complaints. Triathlon adventures. Random observations about life. Maybe the occasional success story.
In other words, my attempt to be the light, even if it’s just a small flashlight in a very large internet.
And if nothing else, at least it will be a place where the comment section doesn’t turn into a debate about the fall of civilization every time someone mentions a bicycle ride.
Which already makes it better than most of the internet.