dispatches on are you electronichttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/tags/dispatches/Recent content in dispatches on are you electronicHugoen-USjustin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)Mon, 05 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0700dog runhttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/dog-run/Mon, 05 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/dog-run/Greyhounds, it is said, cannot back up. I have evidence to the contrary, not that it is particularly helpful in this situation. Ginger, in her heretofore under-appreciated canine curiosity, has followed her nose to the space between the shed and the fence.

No, not that shed, I mean the other one that most people don’t know about because it’s in the dog run on the side of the house by the A/C. Ginger getting stuck in the dog run is rather ironic, especially because since moving to this house we’ve used the gate of the dog run to keep dogs out of there. It’s too unseen from where the people are, and who wants to keep their dog locked up out of sight anyway.

]]>Tags: #sketches #dispatches

Greyhounds, it is said, cannot back up. I have evidence to the contrary, not that it is particularly helpful in this situation. Ginger, in her heretofore under-appreciated canine curiosity, has followed her nose to the space between the shed and the fence.

No, not that shed, I mean the other one that most people don’t know about because it’s in the dog run on the side of the house by the A/C. Ginger getting stuck in the dog run is rather ironic, especially because since moving to this house we’ve used the gate of the dog run to keep dogs out of there. It’s too unseen from where the people are, and who wants to keep their dog locked up out of sight anyway.

The space between the shed and the fence is just wide enough for Ginger to fit, it’s actually pretty comfortably wide back there. But not at all wide enough to turn around in. That’s not really the problem because not only do I have observational evidence that this particular greyhound can reverse, but I also witnessed it. Once. And then she wouldn’t do it anymore. Maybe my being there reminded her that she doesn’t know how to do that. Anyway, backing up is not enough to get out of this jam because the next level skill that is required is backing up around corners. You see, the space Ginger is in is behind the shed, and in order to get there you have to go down the narrower space between the house and the shed and then turn. The third side, between the shed and the fence, is impossibly narrow, only a couple of inches. Can’t go that way. It’s a little cul-de-sac back there.

I myself just barely fit through between the house and the shed, and transiting the corner didn’t prove to be any more informative than just looking. I retreated back to the space between the shed and the house and interrogated the various aspects with my eyes while also making calming voice noises for Ginger, reassurances that it is unlikely that she would be stuck there for much longer. Surely we would get her out before her parents returned the next day. And to give her a couple of treats, enticement to back up which worked the first time but not the second. The first choice would be to reverse around the corner. I did once get her close to it but some stick or leaves or something was not to Ginger’s preference and so she moved away, her forward direction. And that’s the end of willing backing up from her.

There was only one solution: we would disassemble the fence. Of course finding the right tools would prove to be a minor struggle; nothing is really put away all that organizedly in the garage. Sure they’re all in approximately one place, I think, but the ensemble of tools could do with some de-entropic reprocessing. Anyway, we got Ginger out, no harm done, a little life by misadventure after a week of just trying to survive my cold. Dogs.

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]]>village pubhttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/village-pub/Sat, 03 Oct 2026 12:12:00 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/village-pub/In Woodside there is a one-star Michelin restaurant called The Village Pub which serves Fine Dining type food. And, we got there in our friend’s Tesla that drove itself from our house all the way to the parking spot, including navigating the often tricky 85 to 280 interchange merge at Foothill Expressway. It got an easy roll though, Northbound traffic on a Friday night is usually light and the other cars were particularly cooperative. The self-driving mode was set to “hurry”, and so it kept the speed about 10-11 mph over the speed limit and we arrived early; the only hesitant, jerky bobble was turning into the parking lot when an oncoming car was getting near. It did park a little further away than was strictly necessary.

]]>Tags: #dispatches #food #portraits

In Woodside there is a one-star Michelin restaurant called The Village Pub which serves Fine Dining type food. And, we got there in our friend’s Tesla that drove itself from our house all the way to the parking spot, including navigating the often tricky 85 to 280 interchange merge at Foothill Expressway. It got an easy roll though, Northbound traffic on a Friday night is usually light and the other cars were particularly cooperative. The self-driving mode was set to “hurry”, and so it kept the speed about 10-11 mph over the speed limit and we arrived early; the only hesitant, jerky bobble was turning into the parking lot when an oncoming car was getting near. It did park a little further away than was strictly necessary.

Greg, our waiter, was rifling the Prix Fixe menu at us about as fast as he could, and out of order, which made it hard to follow along. We sorted it out after he left, things like “what is kampachi” or “why does this dish have vegetable ash in it, what does that mean, exactly”. A lot of the menu was like this, which if I understand correctly, is a feature of fine dining. I ordered the most absurd thing that I remembered Greg shooting off about, the summer melon consommé, a kind of soup. I had to confirm if it was hot or cold, and Greg was a little bit surprised by the question, his answer was more natural and genuine than the rest of his prepared material. The broth is lukewarm, er, sort of room temperature. Thank you, Greg, that will be fine.

The table service was actually kind of in your face. The bus boys, bus men, I should learn the French word for this role so they can sound as important and integral as they are to the meal, whatever they are called, the service was a show and we weren’t meant to ignore or miss it. Greg and an assistant brought the amuse bouches, and then Parker house rolls, which were perfect. When we ran out of rolls and weren’t sure if we actually wanted more, for the gainz, our hesitation was interpreted as politeness, or perhaps a demurring, when it was in fact a real decision that we were all sorting out at the table. More rolls arrived, along with more sculpted butter. Forceful, vigorous, and sometimes a little too proximal service was the tone, and while it was never delinquent, it was also never invisible either. The only woman on staff that I saw was the hostess, confirming reservations.

Greg insisted on straightening the silverware whenever he passed by, until more customers arrived, anyway. I gave him a hard time by putting them back exactly where I had them as soon as he moved them. I’m not sure if he understood that it was all a joke, I do not know how seriously he has to take all of this for unknown to me reasons.1 He did seem to lay off the touching of my fork and spoon a bit, but he could have just been distracted. The bus-men had no such compunction, and there seemed to be about a dozen of them so it could be that they just didn’t consistently visit our particular table as the evening proceeded. They took the plates and silverware when they were going to take them, and whatever position our bodies happened to be in at the time, interfering with the urgent matter of clearing the table, well, we would just have to move out of the way. There was a service on, don’t you know, and it was kind of a war against these dishes and diners, a bit of collateral damage might just be the cost of doing business. Greg cleared the crumbs with one of those little aluminum scrapers that looks like someone cut a small pipe in half length-wise.

After the last bit was et, another round of amuse bouches- a tiny blueberry tart, a hand rolled salted caramel, and a tiny pâte de fruit that let’s be honest here tasted exactly like a fruit rollup, and the bill was given, left on the table for a while, finally paid and finally returned to us for signing, we continued finishing our water until they took away the tableside ice bucket that had held Loonen bottles, and we realized that the entire outdoor patio in which we had been seated and had had almost all to ourselves for much of the meal was now completely occupied. We decided it was probably best that we not keep the table until Wednesday and so we grabbed our coats and made our way to the front of the building for one more picture with The Village Pub sign, and then we left, riding the self-driving Tesla off into the sunset.

  1. Later, I recognized this obsession with tableware placement is actually about keeping the zone clear so that all the dishes can be put on the table at the same time, in precisely the right place. It’s part of the stage show of fine dining. ↩︎

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]]>panoche roadhttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/panoche-road/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 19:45:00 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/panoche-road/Not that far south of Hollister, make a left at a little complex of buildings or a large farm, depending on how you look at it, that’s the start of it. This is CR J1, the Panoche Road, and it is only marginally maintained. As it winds its way up the Tres Pinos gulch the grand landscape views are presented in miniature. The views are close, the walls rise steeply but not to a particularly great height, and yet all the necessary components are present. The flat valley bottom, the flood plain, it’s barely a hundred feet wide. The creek, mostly dry right now, has cut a sharp vertical channel through it, a couple of feet deep. And the stream bed itself is gravel and stone cobbles. Everywhere along the bottom is green and as the land rises above the tiny plain, the grasses dry and brown. There are some cows here, and some horses there. In the wider places there might be a farm, or a dirt road leading off into the mountains, up some side creek’s draw. The Diablo Range is an intricate place. For the first hour the road is never not bending, always winding, ever routing around some topography. A few cars pass going the other way, but not many.

]]>Tags: #places #dispatches #sketches #nature

Not that far south of Hollister, make a left at a little complex of buildings or a large farm, depending on how you look at it, that’s the start of it. This is CR J1, the Panoche Road, and it is only marginally maintained. As it winds its way up the Tres Pinos gulch the grand landscape views are presented in miniature. The views are close, the walls rise steeply but not to a particularly great height, and yet all the necessary components are present. The flat valley bottom, the flood plain, it’s barely a hundred feet wide. The creek, mostly dry right now, has cut a sharp vertical channel through it, a couple of feet deep. And the stream bed itself is gravel and stone cobbles. Everywhere along the bottom is green and as the land rises above the tiny plain, the grasses dry and brown. There are some cows here, and some horses there. In the wider places there might be a farm, or a dirt road leading off into the mountains, up some side creek’s draw. The Diablo Range is an intricate place. For the first hour the road is never not bending, always winding, ever routing around some topography. A few cars pass going the other way, but not many.

Then we reach the end of Tres Pinos creek and pass over into Panoche creek’s wash. The land opens up a bit, the road is a bit straighter, at least on a scale measured in multiple seconds of not turning the wheel. The pavement is in no better shape, there are and have been sections that are 50% slapped down asphalt patches. There are still farms, and even small communities. There is an elementary school out here, if you can believe it. At this point we haven’t had cell service for over an hour. In the wide Panoche valley, we pass a solar farm in the distance, and a sign for the Mercey Hot Springs. Stretches of road are only half paved now, sometimes it’s the left half and sometimes it’s the right half. Signs warn “impassable when flooded”. The green is gone and all around is a sea of dry yellow grass. The road makes a couple of those jig-jogs, a right angle right turn followed quickly by a left. It wants to keep going in a straight line, due east, but some property got in the way.

A wide-angle landscape photograph showing a rustic wooden fence with a small metal gate alongside a gravel road, opening up to a flat valley flanked by low, arid hills under a blue sky.
Griswold Hills
An eye-level photograph of a dry, golden-brown hillside featuring weathered wooden fence posts, rusted barbed wire, sparse vegetation, and rolling dry hills under a clear blue sky.
Griswold Hills

And then we’re on the New Idria road, and stopping at the Griswold Creek BLM day use area. There is beer litter, and old pizza boxes. The sign says no trash pickup and that is true, the trash has not been picked up. Littered in amongst all the carefully collected garbage, some of it is even bagged and ready to go, are shells of all sorts. Shotgun shells, 40 caliber, and a few rifle shells too. There are a few bullet holes in buildings, doors, and posts, but not as many as I expect. The picnic tables and shelters are newish, maybe less than five years old. The pit toilet building is in great shape, minus a few handgun dents and holes in the door, and minus the mess inside. Only use it if you really have to. Not sure the last time the septic was serviced.

A high-angle view capturing discarded items on dry ground, including multiple cardboard cartons of bottled beer, white paper plates, red paper cups, a crushed can, and dried vegetation.
Collected trash

There are a few graffitis around; stickers and a couple of tags. We have entered the territory of HTF and KOSE EVICT, whoever they are. There are others too, I can’t make them out.

A vertical, close-up shot of a small, dark metal enclosure mounted to a structural post against a blurred, arid background, featuring white painted geometric markings on its side.
HTF
A close-up, vertical photograph of a restroom sign mounted on a textured wall, showing standard accessibility and gender-neutral or men’s/women’s restroom icons, with small sticker labels (KOSE EVICT) and bullet impacts or surface damage visible across the plate.
KOSE EVICT
An eye-level photograph of a small, single-story utility or restroom building with a stone base, wood-paneled siding, a shingled roof, and a tall black vent pipe running up the front wall, which features white graffiti markings.
Unknown tags

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]]>classical tahoe finalehttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/classical-tahoe-finale/Sun, 09 Aug 2026 23:30:00 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/classical-tahoe-finale/The Tahoe Symphony wasn’t perfect, though they were all musical “all stars” as the long-winded introductory speaker said. A program coordinator muttered something that sounded like “too long” under their breath while we waited in the wings for our ticketing situation to get sorted. It was fun watching these intros from stage left, still under the trees; not the usual spot to see it. Then we walked across the front of the stage to our seats like we meant to do it that way all along. The errors really kicked off once the program began. There was the moment that the cellist’s sheet music fell after she turned it, because of a puff of wind from the side. Then the double-bass soloist had to get down off the barstool, lay the instrument on its side, and bend down in her evening gown to adjust the length of the endpin during a lull of the Nino Rota piece, right in the front and middle of the whole orchestra. We remained in our seats during the intermission, not wanting to risk any more improperly timed tours of the front of the stage. The violinist adjusted her music stand up about a half inch during the first movement of Beethoven’s 7th. And there was the first chair dog barker, running late, still somewhere off stage and outside the tent, who performed their one note off time during the second movement. Even here, on Lake Tahoe, there were still things that could be found to be imperfect, if you got out your microscope. The sunset was a nice touch, though. My hat’s off to whomever put in the order for that one.

]]>Tags: #music #attention #dispatches

The Tahoe Symphony wasn’t perfect, though they were all musical “all stars” as the long-winded introductory speaker said. A program coordinator muttered something that sounded like “too long” under their breath while we waited in the wings for our ticketing situation to get sorted. It was fun watching these intros from stage left, still under the trees; not the usual spot to see it. Then we walked across the front of the stage to our seats like we meant to do it that way all along. The errors really kicked off once the program began. There was the moment that the cellist’s sheet music fell after she turned it, because of a puff of wind from the side. Then the double-bass soloist had to get down off the barstool, lay the instrument on its side, and bend down in her evening gown to adjust the length of the endpin during a lull of the Nino Rota piece, right in the front and middle of the whole orchestra. We remained in our seats during the intermission, not wanting to risk any more improperly timed tours of the front of the stage. The violinist adjusted her music stand up about a half inch during the first movement of Beethoven’s 7th. And there was the first chair dog barker, running late, still somewhere off stage and outside the tent, who performed their one note off time during the second movement. Even here, on Lake Tahoe, there were still things that could be found to be imperfect, if you got out your microscope. The sunset was a nice touch, though. My hat’s off to whomever put in the order for that one.

A really special night.

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]]>grab bag vol. 8https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-8/Fri, 03 Jul 2026 13:22:18 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-8/Hello club members! We have all collectively made it to yet another Friday. As is my wont, it’s random grab baggy type things, and because it’s been kind of a week, and because nothing else has come to me, I will turn to my open browser tabs and share something that is shareable.

  1. The Colossal article on Sara Flores, who is an artist that makes very beautiful and geometric art. I reminds me a lot of the plotter art that I love. I have several other tabs, including a piece of hers at the de Young. I hope it’s on display.
    Screenshot of a Colossal article on Sara Flores, showing one of her intricate tan, red, and gold geometric textile patterns.
  2. Nick Carr’s absolutely smashing photos of inside a decommissioned nuclear power plant on Long Island. This is a deep post, with so much deepness in its depths. It’s too deep, tbh. I want more of this. I used to follow his ScoutingNY blog back in the day. Glad to see that Nick is still posting, sometimes.
    Screenshot of Nick Carr’s blog post, showing a tangle of industrial pipes and ductwork above a wall-mounted area radiation monitor.
    I do love me some pipes.
  3. The last one is a writeup of making a virtual reel-to-reel tape player. It does play; you can click it and it makes a great clicky sound and it plays the indicated piece. Dunstan Orchard is a designer professionally, and his wife is a field-recordist. It’s just so crisp and sharp, and these old tools are nostalgic and clicky. Fun!
    Screenshot of a 3D-rendered reel-to-reel tape player, with its playback buttons and layer-visibility toggles below.

Have a great Fourth of July weekend!

]]>Tags: #rss-club #dispatches #links #art

Hello club members! We have all collectively made it to yet another Friday. As is my wont, it’s random grab baggy type things, and because it’s been kind of a week, and because nothing else has come to me, I will turn to my open browser tabs and share something that is shareable.

  1. The Colossal article on Sara Flores, who is an artist that makes very beautiful and geometric art. I reminds me a lot of the plotter art that I love. I have several other tabs, including a piece of hers at the de Young. I hope it’s on display.
    Screenshot of a Colossal article on Sara Flores, showing one of her intricate tan, red, and gold geometric textile patterns.
  2. Nick Carr’s absolutely smashing photos of inside a decommissioned nuclear power plant on Long Island. This is a deep post, with so much deepness in its depths. It’s too deep, tbh. I want more of this. I used to follow his ScoutingNY blog back in the day. Glad to see that Nick is still posting, sometimes.
    Screenshot of Nick Carr’s blog post, showing a tangle of industrial pipes and ductwork above a wall-mounted area radiation monitor.
    I do love me some pipes.
  3. The last one is a writeup of making a virtual reel-to-reel tape player. It does play; you can click it and it makes a great clicky sound and it plays the indicated piece. Dunstan Orchard is a designer professionally, and his wife is a field-recordist. It’s just so crisp and sharp, and these old tools are nostalgic and clicky. Fun!
    Screenshot of a 3D-rendered reel-to-reel tape player, with its playback buttons and layer-visibility toggles below.

Have a great Fourth of July weekend!

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]]>quicksilverhttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/quicksilver/Mon, 29 Jun 2026 20:27:00 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/quicksilver/Ali and I went for a hike yesterday, the first time for her in years. We went along with friends on their usual weekend route. I had never been into Almaden Quicksilver park from the east before, the New Almaden town side. It used to be a mine, which is what “Almaden” means and is named for, a famous mine in Spain since antiquity. The hike is up a road grade, wide and even and well maintained. Mountain bikers (several passed us) and horses (didn’t see any) can use it too. These mountain bikers were quite polite, honestly the first ones since moving to California that I’ve met that followed the etiquette of announcing “on your left” with enough warning and “two more” as they pass. We saw a few other hikers too.

]]>Tags: #nature #dispatches

Ali and I went for a hike yesterday, the first time for her in years. We went along with friends on their usual weekend route. I had never been into Almaden Quicksilver park from the east before, the New Almaden town side. It used to be a mine, which is what “Almaden” means and is named for, a famous mine in Spain since antiquity. The hike is up a road grade, wide and even and well maintained. Mountain bikers (several passed us) and horses (didn’t see any) can use it too. These mountain bikers were quite polite, honestly the first ones since moving to California that I’ve met that followed the etiquette of announcing “on your left” with enough warning and “two more” as they pass. We saw a few other hikers too.

A wooded canyon dropping away toward the hazy valley floor and its distant city grid, with red-tinged brush in the foreground.
There are sometimes views into the Santa Clara Valley.

There were lots of plants, native ones like monkey flower and non-native ones like spanish broom, and toxic ones that we argued over the colors useful for identifying them like poison oak that is sometimes red and sometimes not, but “leaves of three, leave me be” and so on. And regular valley or live or some other kind of oak mixed in just to throw some of us off.

When we got to the top, I could see out over the part of the park that I had been to numerous times before,1 the west side, the Wood Road entrance. You can see it in the photo below. We rested a while there, at the highest level that the trail (road) attains. There is a horse watering trough, and a picnic bench.

Forested ridges receding under a clear blue sky, a small square structure atop the farthest peak and dry golden grass in the foreground.
Mt. Umunhum in the distance, and the Wood Road park entrance is at the right side, middle ground.

The road skirts the back side of the ridge for a bit, and while we were crossing the saddle, if it could be called that, a large turkey vulture crested the hill, barely higher than our heads, did a double-take at our unexpected presence, and continued over to the east side. Might have been the closest to one of those that I’ve been. They’re big! Especially with their wings open. For a moment it was one of those times when something that is usually just an abstracted concept of an animal becomes very real and detailed and a strong presence. Then it continued its aerodynamic path and receded back into the hypothetical and symbolic realm that turkey vultures and most other wildlife normally occupy.

A bare silver-grey dead tree with broken branches beside a green live oak, standing over dry golden grass.
A large and now dead tree that overlooks the aforementioned picnic table. There was a red-hatted woodpecker up there for a little while.

The route down is past some of the mining ruins. They’re ok, I guess. It’s all kind of underwhelming for being the most productive mercury mine in North America. They extracted nearly 84 mega-pounds of it out of the ground over the life of the mine. So many people lived and worked and I’m sure died here. I don’t understand why these ruins don’t engage my interest as much as the desert ruins do. Those are often much smaller or much more wrecked. Much less likely to have produced much of anything. Maybe the fences have something to do with it, the more museum-like presentation. I shall have to ponder it some more.

But the landscape has lots of interest, and feels very close and intricate and there are a lot of very real things to see around every next corner. Birds and trees, and sticks and stones. Rocks are cool, man. Even the lost gouges in the ground, filled with old forest matter, are interesting and surprising when you find them; must be some forgotten mining things. The unprepared, the not set out, the natural as nature stuff, that’s what I want out of these tiny adventures. Unexpected birds that change rapidly from an idea to the incarnate and back just as quick into a symbol, receding over the saddle into the other valley yet still eyeing us over its shoulder.

A couple of other resources:

  1. I even made a (not that great) field recording there with video a few years ago. ↩︎

  2. Another new term. It’s just always like this, isn’t it? ↩︎

  3. It is via this link that I wandered to this site and a) returned to the bubbly waters and also b) continued clicking on to ask WTF is ECV? ECV, or E Clampus Vitus is the dog latin2 name for an apparently legit historical preservation society in the Southwest. They put up plaques, or just initiate new members, or somehow preserve the history of gold mining. Or something. Mark Twain was a member of the earlier iteration of the society. ↩︎

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]]>grab bag vol. 7https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-7/Fri, 26 Jun 2026 16:58:48 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-7/Hello RSS and Email club people. It’s Friday so that means randomness. The universe has by chance presented to me a string a busted myths lately. Three myths have been broken, and I want to share. This improved understanding of the world is thanks to the indefatigable research and combined powers of a team of inquirists; I would not be smarter without the benefit of their efforts.

  1. Watering plants during the day, particularly the leaves, will not burn them. There has been a lot of word play on the definition of the word “burn” for this one, but no, water will not cause a fire, and nor will it scorch the leaves. Water away, water with abandon, but wait, water is precious here in California and there are smarter ways to do it, so water with care.
  2. All carbonated water is fake manufactured. I was profoundly disappointed to learn recently that my favorite beverage, fizzy water (aka sparkling), is a lie. I’m not sure where I acquired this fact, probably from the label on the bottle, but there is apparently very little natural water that is actually bubbly and bottled just is it comes out of the ground with the bubbles still in it and sent to us all over the world. Sometimes, not even the water is real. I still like do drink it though.1
  3. There is no convention for the symbolism of statue horse foot placement. I had asked “are there eras when the arrangement of the horse feet meant one thing but then changed to mean something else centuries later?” But it turns out there really isn’t a convention at all. I had not anchored much of my world view to this fact so it went out with a whatever and I’ll try (not very hard) to remember this so the next time it comes up in a decade or two I can do something about it. It may have even come up before and been knocked down a decade or more ago. I don’t remember, to be honest.

Some of these myths are harmless (carbonated water) or really harmless (horse statues? seriously?). Like Sherlock Holmes said, “Now that I do know it, I shall do my best to forget it.” Knowing about watering your plants can have a practical impact. I wish parsing which facts where facts and which were bogus was easier. Our brains just don’t seem to distinguish well between them. They’re all just ideas it believes about the world to the brain. Beliefs are funny things.

]]>Tags: #rss-club #dispatches #learning

Hello RSS and Email club people. It’s Friday so that means randomness. The universe has by chance presented to me a string a busted myths lately. Three myths have been broken, and I want to share. This improved understanding of the world is thanks to the indefatigable research and combined powers of a team of inquirists; I would not be smarter without the benefit of their efforts.

  1. Watering plants during the day, particularly the leaves, will not burn them. There has been a lot of word play on the definition of the word “burn” for this one, but no, water will not cause a fire, and nor will it scorch the leaves. Water away, water with abandon, but wait, water is precious here in California and there are smarter ways to do it, so water with care.
  2. All carbonated water is fake manufactured. I was profoundly disappointed to learn recently that my favorite beverage, fizzy water (aka sparkling), is a lie. I’m not sure where I acquired this fact, probably from the label on the bottle, but there is apparently very little natural water that is actually bubbly and bottled just is it comes out of the ground with the bubbles still in it and sent to us all over the world. Sometimes, not even the water is real. I still like do drink it though.1
  3. There is no convention for the symbolism of statue horse foot placement. I had asked “are there eras when the arrangement of the horse feet meant one thing but then changed to mean something else centuries later?” But it turns out there really isn’t a convention at all. I had not anchored much of my world view to this fact so it went out with a whatever and I’ll try (not very hard) to remember this so the next time it comes up in a decade or two I can do something about it. It may have even come up before and been knocked down a decade or more ago. I don’t remember, to be honest.

Some of these myths are harmless (carbonated water) or really harmless (horse statues? seriously?). Like Sherlock Holmes said, “Now that I do know it, I shall do my best to forget it.” Knowing about watering your plants can have a practical impact. I wish parsing which facts where facts and which were bogus was easier. Our brains just don’t seem to distinguish well between them. They’re all just ideas it believes about the world to the brain. Beliefs are funny things.

For some reason2 ghosts have come up a lot in the last week or so, which is not an ordinary amount of ghost talk for me. Some of the things I heard about ghosts: Ghosts can’t open doors. Ghosts can’t fit under doors if there is carpet. Rocks are accumulated ghosts. Hiding under blankets or making a protective circle with your arms will protect you from ghosts or other night beings. Ghosts and night beings exist at all. That last one is debatable depending on your context; night beings could easily encompass wild animals, and that seems like a likely explanation for the origin of the fear.

Have you got any favorite beliefs that turned out to be not true upon taking a closer look?

  1. It’s actually hard to find clear aggregate statistics on this, or an unambiguous statement that isn’t just testimony. So, I still hold out some small hope that this belief too is possibly wrong. ↩︎

  2. It’s just random chance again. The reason is chance. Nothing more to it. ↩︎

Have a comment? Leave one on the post, or email me about it.

]]>spilthttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/spilt/Tue, 23 Jun 2026 19:19:52 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/spilt/I had just finished my workout, stair machine and treadmill, and was about to climb the four floors of stairs back to my desk. The door to the stairs has a card reader, you have to get in close to scan your badge, which I had just done when the door absolutely burst open, into my shoulder, and a young man came flying out. I shouted “oh my goodness!” over my headphones, completely startled and a little pushed back from the impact force. He and I were checking ourselves over to see if we were okay, asking each other. He reached out, I think wanting some reassurance that I hadn’t been hurt; I reached back and for a second touched his hand and said I was okay. While we were sorting out if we had caused each other any damage a second young man caught up and also came to the still open door in a hurry. I was okay and he was okay, and so we went on our own ways, mine up the stairs and theirs down the hall. The back side of the door has a warning sign about opening the door with caution.

]]>Tags: #attention #dispatches

I had just finished my workout, stair machine and treadmill, and was about to climb the four floors of stairs back to my desk. The door to the stairs has a card reader, you have to get in close to scan your badge, which I had just done when the door absolutely burst open, into my shoulder, and a young man came flying out. I shouted “oh my goodness!” over my headphones, completely startled and a little pushed back from the impact force. He and I were checking ourselves over to see if we were okay, asking each other. He reached out, I think wanting some reassurance that I hadn’t been hurt; I reached back and for a second touched his hand and said I was okay. While we were sorting out if we had caused each other any damage a second young man caught up and also came to the still open door in a hurry. I was okay and he was okay, and so we went on our own ways, mine up the stairs and theirs down the hall. The back side of the door has a warning sign about opening the door with caution.

Ali was in a hurry, getting her things together and loading her bags and measuring water for her morning protein shake, when she bumped the glass and it toppled from the counter to the floor and loudly shattered to pieces. It’s always kind of amazing how glass does that, all the poised tension and potential just frozen into some unnatural shape and released with a pop, the bits scattering across the floor. Ali said “oh. I’m sorry.” and I said “Which one was it, and are you ok?” I didn’t think the Duralex glasses were that fragile, and suspected it was that old beer glass I had set out. We could do with fewer glasses and cups in the cupboard, and breaking them is one way to make that happen. I wasn’t wearing shoes yet, or socks, so I stayed where I was until Ali got me a pair of Crocs. She swept, I vacuumed, and she left on time.

I was making dinner and had a bag of sous vide beef in its juices, from Costco, that I needed to get to the pan. For some reason, I cut it open over the sink, I guess to catch any spilling. But I needed all the juices and the pan is where they were supposed to go. So I had cut that bag all quite open to get out the precut beef, and was rotating about to get over the pan. A bunch of dribbles fell out onto the floor. Another spill. The same floor we had just swept and mopped in the morning. I needed to eat soon so I could have a bit of time before going to the gym. The physical objects, they just aren’t cooperating right now. Ali helped clean it up while I continued to hurry dinner preparation.

Later that night I found one more tiny shard of glass, a sliver, with my bare foot.

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]]>grab bag vol. 6https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-6/Fri, 19 Jun 2026 17:14:07 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-6/Hello once again RSS clubbers, this is the now habitually weekly grab bag post of random things that I have on hand that are interesting and fun. And random. Ha!

The new field recorder (iOS) app Fields by Audiothing looks like a step up from Kymatica’s AudioShare. I’ll let you know how it turns out, with samples. Of course, you can always just use the built in voice memos app, that’s good too!

]]>Tags: #rss-club #dispatches #links

Hello once again RSS clubbers, this is the now habitually weekly grab bag post of random things that I have on hand that are interesting and fun. And random. Ha!

The new field recorder (iOS) app Fields by Audiothing looks like a step up from Kymatica’s AudioShare. I’ll let you know how it turns out, with samples. Of course, you can always just use the built in voice memos app, that’s good too!

The bubbles.town site, which is like hackernews but for the small web. I like this. They have a digest. You can filter out the tech stuff. There is just a ton of good small web content out there and who wants to spend their precious time just sifting through it all when we can do some common effort to find that good stuff. If you want even less algorithm, the Kagi Small Web is a great flipper. Or just go digging through the blogroll or ooh directory.

An online tribute to A million times, which there is one at the SJC airport, and I love it. There are lots of other editions but even the smallest ones are not for the faint of wallet. Free-associatively, it’s reminds me of a proto Autoglyphs.

That’s it for this week, have a great weekend everyone!

Have a comment? Leave one on the post, or email me about it.

]]>grab bag vol. 5https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-5/Sat, 13 Jun 2026 12:29:54 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-5/Hello RSS Club!

Open tabs

There are only a couple of tabs open in my browser that are worth mentioning.

  1. Researchers discovered that we humans prefer to walk to the left, period full-stop. Man, I love it when some new physics is discovered.
  2. I have a couple of photographers open Brendon Burton and John Thomson (via KDO). I’m intrigued by both, but for different reasons.

Ideas

I had a couple of random ideas this week.

]]>Tags: #rss-club #dispatches #links #active-incident-links

Hello RSS Club!

Open tabs

There are only a couple of tabs open in my browser that are worth mentioning.

  1. Researchers discovered that we humans prefer to walk to the left, period full-stop. Man, I love it when some new physics is discovered.
  2. I have a couple of photographers open Brendon Burton and John Thomson (via KDO). I’m intrigued by both, but for different reasons.

Ideas

I had a couple of random ideas this week.

  1. For some reason I wanted some random strings. I am not an expert in UUIDs or unique strings, but I kind of thought it would be fun to put together a single page site that collects a bunch of the functions for creating those. Every time you open the page it would (pseudo) randomly fill all the different hash values I could think of into copyable elements on the page. A bonus feature is that you could copy a link the page with the seed in the url so you could get back exactly that set of hashes again. I think I wanted to use the hash as a tag for a series of posts on this blog.
  2. I fell down the sashiko rabbit hole this week. Of course in that situation I want the ultimate library of stitch patterns and history and applications and all the information there is to know about this beautiful technique. Not finding anything as deep as I wanted online, I naturally started contemplating making such a reference. I have yet to act on that impulse. I did find a few potentially good books that might suffice.

Request for X

Earlier this week, during the red flag warning, I wanted to keep an eye on the brush fires and such. I used to use Twitter for this, but that site is pretty locked down. I didn’t immediately find a good real time situation room type site for broad spectrum local area events and incidents. Any of you know of such a site, even if it’s not SFBA?

Open Thread

I want to try something new here, something a little community oriented. I invite you to share any old random thing you noticed or have open or want help with. Drop a comment and I’ll reply or try to help!

Have a comment? Leave one on the post, or email me about it.

]]>☀️ heat wavehttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/heatwave/Thu, 11 Jun 2026 19:54:32 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/heatwave/Dang, it’s hot! Today it was nearly 100 F, and for the next week it’s going to be in the 90s. My car said 102. That sucks. Along with that there was a red flag warning, a much higher fire danger due to some wind. Yesterday, on my way home from the office I saw a brush fire1 near my exit, I smelled the smoke. I guess it was a homeless encampment. What a bummer.

]]>Tags: #moods #weather #dispatches #active-incident-links · *duration:24h

Dang, it’s hot! Today it was nearly 100 F, and for the next week it’s going to be in the 90s. My car said 102. That sucks. Along with that there was a red flag warning, a much higher fire danger due to some wind. Yesterday, on my way home from the office I saw a brush fire1 near my exit, I smelled the smoke. I guess it was a homeless encampment. What a bummer.

And I’m watching the local weather forecast, and Darren2 is saying the really hot weather is only for today. Tomorrow will be a bit cooler, and there is a return of the marine layer. The part of the bay that I am in will continue to be quite warm though.

Also, there are these waves out of the south from a winter storm almost a week ago near New Zealand. I was wondering where these big swells were coming from. Not really wondering enough to go look into it right now, but the answer just came to me anyway.

That’s pretty cool.

  1. That’s a screenshot. It doesn’t look like this site keeps an archive for more than a day, nor does it link directly to the CHP incident reports. So a screenshot it is. The Commute Dash site does look to be quite a useful find though. ↩︎

  2. Darren is one of two meteorologists on this channel. There are others, but these two, Darren and Paul, they’re really weather therapists. We’re gonna get through this, whatever this is this time. It’s gonna be ok. Or, it’s gonna be over at some point, because the weather is always changing. ↩︎

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]]>grab bag vol. 4https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-4/Fri, 05 Jun 2026 12:53:14 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-4/Hello RSS Clubs and Email Subs! It’s Friday and that means random things. This time I thought I’d share a few YT videos in my history from the last couple of weeks. Looking through the list of videos that I pulled up, there is an ordinary exotic theme here, to me at least. These videos may not be exactly your jam, but maybe there is something about them that interests you. Seeing into someone else’s algorithmic silo is interesting; YouTube is so vast that it’s like looking into a foreign country that you didn’t even know existed!

]]>Tags: #rss-club #YouTube #dispatches #music

Hello RSS Clubs and Email Subs! It’s Friday and that means random things. This time I thought I’d share a few YT videos in my history from the last couple of weeks. Looking through the list of videos that I pulled up, there is an ordinary exotic theme here, to me at least. These videos may not be exactly your jam, but maybe there is something about them that interests you. Seeing into someone else’s algorithmic silo is interesting; YouTube is so vast that it’s like looking into a foreign country that you didn’t even know existed!

Adventure things

I do have a penchant for the weirder adventure content. Exploring mines, urbex, and weather things. Those will all attract my attention. This week wanted to show me some different stuff, bay hiking and kayaking in weird currents, and sailing into storms solo.

  1. Tsunami Island / Gifgas is one of my regulars. I like his balance of long takes and only enough talking to explain what is going on. The scenery is ordinary and interesting and not the stuff you usually see. This one is unusual even for him- there are not any trains. I love it!
  2. Quicksand! / The algorithm provides. I recommend just muting it because the wind noise is horrendous. The Tsunami Island video alludes to quicksand problems in the Mont St. Michel bay, something I had no idea about. This video is a demonstration of developing quicksand, sinking into it, and escaping. Fascinating!
  3. Erik Aanderaa / Turning to a different sort of adventure, this guy just sails, no bs. He sails in the North Sea, and often solo. That’s pretty nuts. This one though, there is a lot of talking and some wind noise, and the cuts aren’t that long. Big waves and stormy weather though. If you want less danger sailing but still adventure (and less talking), I recommend Tupaia.

Cozy things

In contrast with all that vicarious risk taking, there are also several videos that are just chill. Again the emphasis is on longer takes, less or no talking, and ordinary scenes. Take a break and enjoy some quieter moments.

  1. Maigomika / This Canadian couple are renovating a house in the Japanese mountains. It’s not hyper-craft fetish, that would be Dylan Iwakuni’s work. That stuff is cool too, just not all that relaxing.1 Maigomika is more “come along with me while we do the chores” type content. So weird and awesome that it can be a genre with episodic content, because YouTube. The other that falls into this category but less approachable is Martijn; he’s sort of in between.
  2. Imamu / More “come along with me while we do the chores” stuff here, this time it’s all cookery and family life. This is a Japanese family that lives in Canada.2 It’s just ordinary things with no direct to the camera talking. Long takes, normal stuff. So nice.
  3. Oria / This is a new one, I’m not endorsing it, but the algorithm did surface something that’s fits in with this mix. This is some skater kid in, well, I don’t know where. Maybe LA? It’s just a few minutes of them doing their skateboard practice, learning some new moves or applying their trade to some new playgrounds. Long takes, no talking, just doing things at an approachable, relatable level. I might check in from time to time. How is this stuff such a thing? It’s amazing.

Music things

Now for the music. We’re in a golden age for this stuff. There is a lot of it out there, and a lot more coming all the time. I’m sure you can find a DJ or musician to match your own taste. These are all no-talking.

  1. Peripheral / Some guy in London or somewhere. I may have listened to one other before. This one had good grooves. I gotta be honest though, these single guys playing records in their just-too-well-put-together living rooms, they’re pretty hit or miss. I can’t say if this channel is consistently good. This one was though.
  2. Martin Stürtzer / Long time listener. Martin’s series of home concerts are fantastic. Very few don’t work for me. He’s got a cat, he’s got tea. He’s got lots of synths!
  3. James Grant / Father of Anjunadeep, so this is pro level stuff. It’s good Deep House.

There you go, that’s the grab from the bag! Hope you enjoyed it! Maybe comment me a video from your recent history? What’s something totally different from what I’ve got here that amazes you?

  1. No really, it’s beautiful, the reno they do on that house. Not sure who’s really going to live there though. ↩︎

  2. An unintentional symmetry, what fun! ↩︎

Have a comment? Leave one on the post, or email me about it.

]]>grab bag vol. 3https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-3/Fri, 29 May 2026 18:59:30 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-3/Hello once again RSS Clubbers, and welcome email subscribers! This week I am sharing a few open questions that I have pondered lately. Please enjoy this week’s grab bag, another peek behind the curtain.

  1. What is the source of the infrasonic rumble? You may or may not know that I have a hobby of making field recordings, especially long playing ones. This one, from Quicksilver-Almaden park, is especially boring (which is ideal), and if I remember correctly I tried to mitigate the low frequencies with a high-pass filter, yet the lowest frequencies are still there. At the time I recorded that one, I thought it was “just San Jose” off in the distance. But in the Butano posts, I mention that there is a noticeable low frequency “rumble in the distance”. Maybe it’s two different sources, waves crashing on the coast for one and city noise for the other. I do not know.

    ]]>Tags: #rss-club #dispatches #learning

    Hello once again RSS Clubbers, and welcome email subscribers! This week I am sharing a few open questions that I have pondered lately. Please enjoy this week’s grab bag, another peek behind the curtain.

    1. What is the source of the infrasonic rumble? You may or may not know that I have a hobby of making field recordings, especially long playing ones. This one, from Quicksilver-Almaden park, is especially boring (which is ideal), and if I remember correctly I tried to mitigate the low frequencies with a high-pass filter, yet the lowest frequencies are still there. At the time I recorded that one, I thought it was “just San Jose” off in the distance. But in the Butano posts, I mention that there is a noticeable low frequency “rumble in the distance”. Maybe it’s two different sources, waves crashing on the coast for one and city noise for the other. I do not know.

    2. Does Virginia Woolf always use so many new-to-me words? Is this unique to her or is it a historical remove thing (i.e. has the common vocabulary diverged in the ~100 years between me-the-reader and her-the-author)? Last week I read The Death of the Moth. Jeff pointed out that there were quite a few unusual words. I had noticed this in the reading and simply moved on, but it is worth pondering a bit more. In the first paragraph alone, I counted four unfamiliar words: benignant1, share2, down3, and vociferation4. There are only five paragraphs in the whole piece. Is this normal? I love it!5 I should read more Woolf to find out. Luckily there are two other essays in my edition of The Norton Reader, so I can get some signal with minimal effort or investment.

    3. Is the fork the most likely object in the dishwasher to hurt you? The only time I have been injured while unloading the dishwasher was by jamming a fork under my fingernail because I didn’t see its edge-on appearance. Like Abbott’s Triangles,6 forks disappear when viewed from certain directions. Knives are another leading candidate for injury-causers, even butter and table knives can cut you. But, forks go up and knives go down in the dishwasher’s silverware rack thing, so knives are in the safe direction. I was not being as careful as usual that day; it hurt! How common is this injury? Is something else more likely to send you searching for a bandaid, and we just don’t put that thing in out dishwasher? Who keeps this sort of statistics?

    4. I observe that traffic seems to slow down significantly on Fridays and Sundays. Is traffic really slower on those days? Everyone sure takes their time around the SFBA when getting from point A to point B, especially on the freeways. On the other hand, it’s probably just me, I’m the one still in a hurry, just 5% more than everyone else. Do you see this in your neck of the woods? What’s the reason, what is driving this phenomenon?

    A few thin strips of rubber scattered on wet ashphault. A bright white parking strip line bisects the frame vertically.
    Seen this week, during the very unusual for late May rain.

    1. Two things: I am linking to Websters 1913 dictionary because a) it’s a good dictionary, b) it’s public domain, c) the website doesn’t have ads, d) it’s got an easy to remember url websters1913.com, and e) it’s contemporary to Woolf. Second, I was able to guess approximately the meanings of some of these words from context or familiarity with alternate suffixes on the same root,7 others I had to puzzle out, and yet more I simply moved on and triangulated back to them later in the piece. I think it was good for my brain. ↩︎

    2. I had always interpreted “plough share” to mean something about a portion of land. And to mean the blade of the plough. Woolf uses “share” here bare, without directly referring to the plough. That’s plow in Americanish, I think. I interpretted Woolf’s usage to mean that second one, but it could also mean the row that has been freshly cut by the plough. ↩︎

    3. The phrase Woolf uses is “…and the down beyond…”. Does she mean the hills on the other side of the fields? Does she mean the “way out there beyond the land I can see before me”? I’m pretty sure the former, maybe it was a common usage in rural England. Because the imagery in the paragraph surrounding this is very diverse and vivid I was even considering feathers for a moment. I settled on hills, like how Tolkien uses it. ↩︎

    4. This is obviously just a different suffix on “vociferous”. Yet I had never seen it before. Neither had Jeff. ↩︎

    5. I am a dictionary nerd. I have, like, so many dang dictionaries. ↩︎

    6. I am unsure of the political correctness / cancelled status / et cetera of the Flatland book. It is a satire written in the 1800s. I neither vouch for or against it, it is a historical document that has some interesting geometrical analogies and thought experiments. That is all. ↩︎

    7. Such as: benignant is obviously related to benign, and vociferation is obviously related to vociferous. But I am getting ahead of myself and possibly you too. ↩︎

    Have a comment? Leave one on the post, or email me about it.

    ]]>    new foodshttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/new-foods/Thu, 28 May 2026 19:47:37 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/new-foods/Yesterday I noticed a pattern, or trend, or well, something. My first “new foods” in the last year. They’re not all actually new foods, only one was that.

    First up: cottage cheese. I added this into my diet last fall. I made it palatable by adding grapes, cinnamon, maple syrup, or strawberry jam. Eventually I decided it was fine and not a struggle to consume and I could just add a minimum of maple syrup. If I had to, I would eat it plain. Kinda boring, but whatever.

    ]]>    Tags: #food #dispatches

    Yesterday I noticed a pattern, or trend, or well, something. My first “new foods” in the last year. They’re not all actually new foods, only one was that.

    First up: cottage cheese. I added this into my diet last fall. I made it palatable by adding grapes, cinnamon, maple syrup, or strawberry jam. Eventually I decided it was fine and not a struggle to consume and I could just add a minimum of maple syrup. If I had to, I would eat it plain. Kinda boring, but whatever.

    The second one, the truly novel one, was caviar. I forget which kind it was, err, kinds because there were several. I didn’t seek this out, an opportunity presented itself a couple of months ago, and I was with good people who weren’t going to judge or pressure so I took a chance on it. Honestly, this one had been overhyped, it was really a non-event. Neither good nor bad, just an additional flavor to add to things, I guess. Confession: it was only a little and it was, ahem, they were not the strongest types. I had them with some steak, I had them by themselves, I had them on those little pancakes (blinis) and sour cream and chives or shallots. All the usual ways, or so I am told. I would do it again, but I’m not chomping at the bit for it. I wonder how much of the appeal of caviar is it as a food and how much of it is a symbolic eating money.

    I’ve saved the best for last, and it’s a personal one, because it’s one I feel even more strongly, more viscerally. I did, anyway. Yesterday I got some salad at work, and after sitting down to eat I found a food that has been on my verboten list for basically my whole life. There, amongst the romaine lettuce and semi-dried corn kernels, tucked in there and semi-hidden, there was a slice of hard boiled egg. I have found that eggs can be eaten one way and one way only: scrambled. I did manage to survive a bowl of hard boiled egg soup (I swear it was but I can’t find a picture); I may not have eaten a lot, but I didn’t eat none either. And there was another time, in the mid-to-late nineties when a little old French grandma in Chambéry prepared a sunnyside up egg in a ceramic crock dish with bacon and served it to me and I had to eat it or be rude and, frankly it was basically perfect and I still remember how that egg and bacon tastes today but when I see any other sunnyside up egg cooked like that it just doesn’t look to be up to the standard and I don’t know what magic she did but these other eggs just don’t have it. Anyway, yesterday, when confronted by this particular devil food, I found that it had little power over me. I could eat that. So I proceeded to eat other parts of my meal as normal and checked in a minute or two later to see if I had found my sense of revulsion, but I had not. I circled back again and decided that maybe today is the day. And it was, yesterday was the day. I would eat another sixth of a hard boiled egg again sometime if the opportunity presents itself. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, I’m not seeking these other egg preparations out.

    So, what is going on here? I mean, the cottage cheese is for the gainz, for the protein, for the gym. And the caviar was just a random fluke. Coulda happened to anybody. But the hard boiled egg? I wasn’t looking for that one. Yesterday, with that egg, I was alone. I could have kept to the same old habits and not eaten that and not told anyone and no one would know. Either way, eaten it or not eaten it, no one needs to know this.

    What is next, seafood? I don’t think I’m ready for that.

    There is an egg in there amongst that salad, on a dark blue plate, on a lighter blue table.
    Do you see it? I do.

    Have a comment? Leave one on the post, or email me about it.

    ]]>    🚜 machineshttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/machines/Wed, 27 May 2026 20:31:49 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/machines/<p>The neighbors are having work done. Their driveway is gone and so is most of their front yard. I&rsquo;m pleasantly surprised at how relatively quiet the machines have been. But there is only so much that can be done about busting up cement thirty feet away. So, there was some shaking and rattling and banging of the blocks as they fell into the back of a dump truck parked and idling in front of, well, almost my house. So, mostly quiet.</p>Tags: #moods #dispatches #attention · *duration:24h

    The neighbors are having work done. Their driveway is gone and so is most of their front yard. I’m pleasantly surprised at how relatively quiet the machines have been. But there is only so much that can be done about busting up cement thirty feet away. So, there was some shaking and rattling and banging of the blocks as they fell into the back of a dump truck parked and idling in front of, well, almost my house. So, mostly quiet.

    Have a comment? Leave one on the post, or email me about it.

    ]]>    acidhttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/acid/Tue, 26 May 2026 20:19:15 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/acid/ A graffiti that says “acid”. And “moko,” it says “moko” too.
    By Moko. I think. Nice one, Moko.

    I was out for a run when I spotted this one at the end of the trail where I turn around to double back and where the water goes underground and out to who-knows-where1 so I made a quick audio note to myself to commit to coming back out here with a tripod and my real camera and taking a picture of it before it gets painted over by the city infra folks. This is that picture. The thing about this graffito is that it’s possibly the most intricate one I’ve seen in my neighborhood. There are some up the way, by the 87/85 interchange that change a lot, are a lot bigger, and are possibly more “art.” But along this canal, I’ve not seen anything this ambitious before. It was a little harder to get to than I expected; the gate I had slipped through last time has been tightened up a bit, so I had to climb over it this time. Just thought I’d share something I noticed this weekend.

    ]]>    Tags: #photos #attention #dispatches #art

    A graffiti that says “acid”. And “moko,” it says “moko” too.
    By Moko. I think. Nice one, Moko.

    I was out for a run when I spotted this one at the end of the trail where I turn around to double back and where the water goes underground and out to who-knows-where1 so I made a quick audio note to myself to commit to coming back out here with a tripod and my real camera and taking a picture of it before it gets painted over by the city infra folks. This is that picture. The thing about this graffito is that it’s possibly the most intricate one I’ve seen in my neighborhood. There are some up the way, by the 87/85 interchange that change a lot, are a lot bigger, and are possibly more “art.” But along this canal, I’ve not seen anything this ambitious before. It was a little harder to get to than I expected; the gate I had slipped through last time has been tightened up a bit, so I had to climb over it this time. Just thought I’d share something I noticed this weekend.

    1. It goes to a lake (park) nearby. I looked it up. ↩︎

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    ]]>    brunchhttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/brunch/Sun, 24 May 2026 17:06:51 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/brunch/My plate is sliding away from me across the table. The pressure needed to coax shredded cabbage onto my fork is simply too great for the frictionless surface of this glossy white tabletop. The cabbage isn’t cooperating. No, that’s unfair. What’s not cooperating is the fork: it’s too small for the job. It’s a beautiful object, this fork. But as a tool for moving food from plate to mouth, it’s clearly inferior to the task. I give up my frustrated attempts at eating and glance around the room. The space is beautiful: black leather chairs, white tabletops above bright gold uprights, white cuboid room, very high ceilings, black trim, large tall windows, and dark gauzy curtains.

    ]]>    Tags: #dispatches #food

    My plate is sliding away from me across the table. The pressure needed to coax shredded cabbage onto my fork is simply too great for the frictionless surface of this glossy white tabletop. The cabbage isn’t cooperating. No, that’s unfair. What’s not cooperating is the fork: it’s too small for the job. It’s a beautiful object, this fork. But as a tool for moving food from plate to mouth, it’s clearly inferior to the task. I give up my frustrated attempts at eating and glance around the room. The space is beautiful: black leather chairs, white tabletops above bright gold uprights, white cuboid room, very high ceilings, black trim, large tall windows, and dark gauzy curtains.

    Ron asks the young waitress if it used to be a bank; the architectural details give it away. He wonders if the robots are where the vault used to be.1 She doesn’t know, looks anxious and puzzled by these questions. Apparently she’s never been asked before.

    Everything in the space is beautiful. Instagram worthy. The point.

    The crepe tacos look marvelous, are perfectly plated, and have all the right ingredients. They’re not actually a hand food anymore; I watch the catastrophe unfold in real time. These are fork-and-knife tacos. Ron’s burger and fries come in boxes, fresh from the burger bot, but there is no plate with the kit. My plate is still sliding all over the place. Both Linden and Jeff’s bánh mìs, like the tacos, have been elevated. This poses severe difficulties with some foods, and bánh mìs are one. They are already engineered to perfection: the bread is just right, the type of filling and amount are precisely calibrated, and they’re wrapped to go. Giant wooden restaurant sandwich spikes will not compensate for these mechanical challenges, no matter how good the constituent parts taste. And everything tastes great when we can get it into our mouths.

    And another thing: the almost bare cubic space has a be-shaded DJ working his laptop station from the corner. There is, as usual, the ordinary restaurant din, which is already a challenge if sound isn’t carefully managed. The DJ is just pumping this reverberant space with so much more noise. There’s nothing in here to absorb it but us. The music is fine, maybe even good. I can’t tell. The problem is just too much of it. We are really struggling to hear each other, hear the staff. Sometimes hearing our own thoughts is difficult.

    Like I said, the food tastes great, everything is fresh, prepared and served with care. And it’s all so beautiful to behold. Just wish I could eat here.

    A small fork resting on a glossy white plate of shredded cabbage salad, topped with a yellow pansy and ringed with glazed chicken.
    It’s beautiful and tiny, that fork.

    1. Well that sentence was weird as hell to write. Yelp has a video if you want to see. ↩︎

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    ]]>    small bloggershttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/small-bloggers/Sat, 23 May 2026 19:29:08 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/small-bloggers/I found out yesterday that Jeff’s mom has a blog, has had a blog for 7 21 years! And Jeff wanted to connect me and mine to her and hers. This morning I got the personal intro by email, and it was just so charming and great. Both Jeff’s intro and Cathy’s reply. A connection is already connecting. It’s better to read blogs of people you know in real life, even if they’re a step removed. It jumpstarts the peek behind the curtain that sometimes takes years to see. Those little details that aren’t the main subject or theme of the long running blog.

    ]]>    Tags: #dispatches #blogging

    I found out yesterday that Jeff’s mom has a blog, has had a blog for 7 21 years! And Jeff wanted to connect me and mine to her and hers. This morning I got the personal intro by email, and it was just so charming and great. Both Jeff’s intro and Cathy’s reply. A connection is already connecting. It’s better to read blogs of people you know in real life, even if they’re a step removed. It jumpstarts the peek behind the curtain that sometimes takes years to see. Those little details that aren’t the main subject or theme of the long running blog.

    Cathy’s blog is all personal updates, poetry, and pictures. So it’ll be interesting to see what turns up from the other side of the curtain. What I really like though is all of those pictures.1 Check it out at cathysblog.org.

    How did we get here? Last night over dinner preparations Jeff and I were talking about how great small blogging is for the readers, particularly those of us using RSS readers. The posts show up, they are not too frequent, the thing is posted because the author cared enough to write it or wanted to share it. They’re in chronological order and the burden of keeping up is only as bad as your own lack of curation; you can catch up after a short gap. Small blogs are visibly not a side hustle of some kind. There’s none of that SEO nonsense. If I’ve been following someone for years and years, I’ve seen those rare glimpses of the real life happening behind the screen. It builds a genuine connection, I care about their struggles, and am glad that they persist at posting. I can see more of the whole person. Jeff and I both agreed about this. It’s just better that way, more genuine.

    The other way of running things is fine too. Running a blog like a business is just not the same thing at all. I hope we keep blogging, despite what’s being said these days about AI and Google Zero and all that. I just don’t see how the value of connecting with others can be strip mined by the LLMs and somehow captured into them. Maybe for those run-like-a-business blogs, where they are trying to sell something. But for the small bloggers that are putting out their experiences and thoughts, the value is the connection between them and the individual readers. The value lives in the people that are participating. It’s the exchange, even if it’s mostly one way, there is a connection there.2 I’m looking for more of that and maybe even some bidirectional exchange.34

    1. I’ve mentioned before how much I like blogs that have pictures. It will surely come up again. ↩︎

    2. It’s kind of like how Coke wants people to drink more Coke, but everyone just wants water. Water is the best. Coke is a business, looking to exchange your money for some water with extra steps, some of them not so great. I just want water most of the time, which is a direct connection to the good stuff. And water is mostly almost free, as long as we keep it that way. Well, the analogy isn’t perfected yet. ↩︎

    3. I did add all the comments backend stuff for someone besides myself, right? ↩︎

    4. These are just general small blogger sentiments. I’m not looking at anyone in particular. Really. ↩︎

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    ]]>    video gameshttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/video-games/Fri, 22 May 2026 17:13:30 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/video-games/It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another snapshot grab bag of random stuff. Today’s theme is what I have played, what I am playing, and what I am excited to play next. I don’t play as much as I used to, but a guy can still dream.

    If you’ve got some ideas for me, why not send me a comment?

    Currently

    Abiotic Factor - Currently long playing this one with a friend on Thursday nights. There is a lot of great and nostalgic “WTF video games?” moments and I love it.

    ]]>    Tags: #rss-club #video-games #dispatches

    It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another snapshot grab bag of random stuff. Today’s theme is what I have played, what I am playing, and what I am excited to play next. I don’t play as much as I used to, but a guy can still dream.

    If you’ve got some ideas for me, why not send me a comment?

    Currently

    Abiotic Factor - Currently long playing this one with a friend on Thursday nights. There is a lot of great and nostalgic “WTF video games?” moments and I love it.

    Kingdom Come Deliverance (I and II) - I picked it up after watching Any Austin’s tour of uninteresting places. I haven’t made it out of the starting village yet, there is quite a lot of tedium it seems. But it looks like it could be a great hiking simulator!

    Completed

    Lego Voyagers - I’m glad I played through this one even though it was short. There was so much delight in the puzzles and random things that happen. So silly!

    Future

    Orbitals (yt1) - Spotted this one a while ago. I’m a sucker for cell shaded sh*t. And it’s co-op too. Probably alternate it with AB2 if it turns out to be that much fun.

    CALX (yt) - Just saw this this week. Another one with cell shading, and it looks like an extension of Sable, as others have noted. I hope it’s not janky!

    Edith Finch - Recent recommendation. I remember it from when it looked interesting at the time, but I was quite busy with things. I’m always happy to play older games.

    1. I prefer something more durable, like Wikipedia to link to for these references, but a couple of these don’t have a Wikipedia page, so I used YouTube as the durable source. ↩︎

    2. That’s Abiotic Factor. ↩︎

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    ]]>    mothshttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/moths/Wed, 20 May 2026 20:03:52 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/moths/There are almost no similes in Virginia Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth.” To be precise, there is one asimile1 and two similes. That is not very many similes. These few similes all point into the frame, not out. None of them speak directly to the reader to explain anything that has just been described in the piece. At no point is that done. All the similes deepen the reader’s picture of the characters in the story.

    ]]>    Tags: #writing #learning #dispatches

    There are almost no similes in Virginia Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth.” To be precise, there is one asimile1 and two similes. That is not very many similes. These few similes all point into the frame, not out. None of them speak directly to the reader to explain anything that has just been described in the piece. At no point is that done. All the similes deepen the reader’s picture of the characters in the story.

    A small pale-tan moth at rest on a textured cream surface, wings folded narrow along its back.
    The humble day moth, agriphila straminella (image credit).

    So that’s what I learned. To get to that I had to first read the piece for the content, read the story. I did not expect to feel so much for a bug that had died over 80 years ago.2 It is exceptionally well written. I am not bothered at all that I read it approximately three times.

    I read it to try and learn something about the craft of writing. The part that I am working on right now is what I call “sketches”. My drafts tend to drift into talking to the reader about what I am trying to say. It breaks the spell. My copy of the Norton Reader puts them in the rhetorical genre called Describing.

    Woolf’s very short piece, just two facing pages, is a moving observation of herself, but universal, in the mode of description.

    1. An asimile is something I just made up. It’s short for anti-simile. A simile is of the form “x is like y”, ergo an asimile is of the form “x is not like y.” ↩︎

    2. I’m assuming here that Woolf wrote the piece in 1940 or ‘41, shortly before it was published. Also shortly before she died. I have no idea if that’s true, or if the piece is about a moth that died around the time that she wrote it and not 20 years earlier. Or if it’s even about any one particular moth that she witnessed passing at all. ↩︎

    Have a comment? Leave one on the post, or email me about it.

    ]]>    grab bag vol. 2https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-2/Fri, 15 May 2026 16:04:35 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-2/Hello RSS Clubbers! It’s Friday again so that means I’m sharing some kind of snapshot. This week I’ll take a quick tour through my open tabs and share a few worth sharing.

    A woven carpet hangs on the wall and appears to melt to the floor.
    Doubts 2020?
    1. Faig Ahmed - I got to see one Ahmed’s pieces at the de Young a couple of weeks ago (above) and I thought it was pretty cool. I think this one made the internet rounds a couple of years ago, probably around 2020. This Is Colossal has some more pieces, now on display in Venice.
    2. The Neighborhoods - Kingsbridge - Just the latest installment of Rob Stephenson’s awesome work on documenting every neighborhood in NYC. Interesting details (text) throughout and you get to see what a place looks like in the ample photos. You should subscribe!
    3. Wyoming’s Nuclear Renaissance - An article I am reading about developments in the nuclear industry. I urge caution as we make progress.
    4. Kottke’s Rolodex is a(bout to be a) feed reader - Jason shared a new feature on his blog a while ago, I’m just catching up. Maybe I should become a paying subscriber so I can comment and discuss.

    Have a great weekend!

    ]]>    Tags: #dispatches #links #rss-club

    Hello RSS Clubbers! It’s Friday again so that means I’m sharing some kind of snapshot. This week I’ll take a quick tour through my open tabs and share a few worth sharing.

    A woven carpet hangs on the wall and appears to melt to the floor.
    Doubts 2020?
    1. Faig Ahmed - I got to see one Ahmed’s pieces at the de Young a couple of weeks ago (above) and I thought it was pretty cool. I think this one made the internet rounds a couple of years ago, probably around 2020. This Is Colossal has some more pieces, now on display in Venice.
    2. The Neighborhoods - Kingsbridge - Just the latest installment of Rob Stephenson’s awesome work on documenting every neighborhood in NYC. Interesting details (text) throughout and you get to see what a place looks like in the ample photos. You should subscribe!
    3. Wyoming’s Nuclear Renaissance - An article I am reading about developments in the nuclear industry. I urge caution as we make progress.
    4. Kottke’s Rolodex is a(bout to be a) feed reader - Jason shared a new feature on his blog a while ago, I’m just catching up. Maybe I should become a paying subscriber so I can comment and discuss.

    Have a great weekend!

    Have a comment? Leave one on the post, or email me about it.

    ]]>    grab bag vol. 1https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-1/Mon, 04 May 2026 20:06:31 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/grab-bag-vol-1/Welcome to the first real volume of RSS Club! It’s just some random things.

    1. Ali and I are watching Néro the Assassin which is kind of fun. It’s French, but you can’t watch it in French, only in English audio and all the other languages closed caption. Or, well, I didn’t check all the other languages, just the French which is only closed captions. It’s only available in English audio. Fun fact: they did AI assisted mouth dubbing which fine, I guess. It’s a little uncanny. I’d rather watch it in French with subtitles. It’s pretty bad actually, if you stare at it.
    2. Leg day today was especially intense. Probably because I was late; I think I mis-noted the time of the appointment. Or it was just the scheduled workout since it’s basically the same thing Ali did last week.
    3. I was hoping to find some good photos of the interior user interfaces, buttons, labels, switches, that kind of thing from the Artemis II capsule. No such luck yet. There is a massive new trove on the GAE, 12k pictures (via Kottke, which I guess was via Damn Interesting and via PetaPixel before that, phew!). But I haven’t found any yet of the switches. Let me know if you do. This one is pretty cool, and so it this one, but you can’t see the controls or labels very well. No luck on the time ordered page either (via pxlnv).
    4. I recently switched to FeedBin after a couple of years of using MiniFlux after a couple of years of using the local fetcher in ReadKit. The vintage ip address range is supposed to have better luck at fetching some feeds that have been perpetually rejected. Yes, I do have some old feeds that I have carried over several times since the good old days of Google Reader. I think they’re that old. I don’t really know. Anyway, nothing is as good as that, and no, big-G, you can never bring it back, I wouldn’t trust it. I bumped into this service on the tour through alternatives; I haven’t really been able to figure out why they’re making a pitch to businesses for a feed reader, or something.
    ]]>    Tags: #rss-club #dispatches #ai

    Welcome to the first real volume of RSS Club! It’s just some random things.

    1. Ali and I are watching Néro the Assassin which is kind of fun. It’s French, but you can’t watch it in French, only in English audio and all the other languages closed caption. Or, well, I didn’t check all the other languages, just the French which is only closed captions. It’s only available in English audio. Fun fact: they did AI assisted mouth dubbing which fine, I guess. It’s a little uncanny. I’d rather watch it in French with subtitles. It’s pretty bad actually, if you stare at it.
    2. Leg day today was especially intense. Probably because I was late; I think I mis-noted the time of the appointment. Or it was just the scheduled workout since it’s basically the same thing Ali did last week.
    3. I was hoping to find some good photos of the interior user interfaces, buttons, labels, switches, that kind of thing from the Artemis II capsule. No such luck yet. There is a massive new trove on the GAE, 12k pictures (via Kottke, which I guess was via Damn Interesting and via PetaPixel before that, phew!). But I haven’t found any yet of the switches. Let me know if you do. This one is pretty cool, and so it this one, but you can’t see the controls or labels very well. No luck on the time ordered page either (via pxlnv).
    4. I recently switched to FeedBin after a couple of years of using MiniFlux after a couple of years of using the local fetcher in ReadKit. The vintage ip address range is supposed to have better luck at fetching some feeds that have been perpetually rejected. Yes, I do have some old feeds that I have carried over several times since the good old days of Google Reader. I think they’re that old. I don’t really know. Anyway, nothing is as good as that, and no, big-G, you can never bring it back, I wouldn’t trust it. I bumped into this service on the tour through alternatives; I haven’t really been able to figure out why they’re making a pitch to businesses for a feed reader, or something.

    Have a comment? Leave one on the post, or email me about it.

    ]]>    Maderahttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/madera/Sun, 03 May 2026 20:31:21 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/madera/This place is a hotel restaurant at the end of Menlo Park on Sand Hill road, past SLAC but before 280. Could it be the local spot for the ultra wealthy that live in the hills past the freeway, up in La Honda or wherever? Hotel restaurant is sometimes a bad word, but this one used to be the spot back in the day. I’m unclear which day that was. It wasn’t yet built when the dot com boom was on. The other tech boom has been a sort of continuous series mini-booms and busts all happening in parallel. The AI boom is on right now, but so is the AI employment bust. It’s all very confusing and stressful.

    ]]>    Tags: #dispatches #food #places

    This place is a hotel restaurant at the end of Menlo Park on Sand Hill road, past SLAC but before 280. Could it be the local spot for the ultra wealthy that live in the hills past the freeway, up in La Honda or wherever? Hotel restaurant is sometimes a bad word, but this one used to be the spot back in the day. I’m unclear which day that was. It wasn’t yet built when the dot com boom was on. The other tech boom has been a sort of continuous series mini-booms and busts all happening in parallel. The AI boom is on right now, but so is the AI employment bust. It’s all very confusing and stressful.

    But at Madera there is no stress. It is a place that has the right amount of space between the tables, is not too bright or too dim, is quiet for conversation and your own voices are absorbed into the special air they use so your party doesn’t disturb any other party, or vice versa. I don’t know how they do it, but I wish more restaurants would stage this way. Not all, of course, but being able to hear each other is a nice experience.

    I haven’t yet mentioned the view. How do I capture this, because it is not a postcard view. I would assume that the spectacular feature is the marine layer clouds falling over the crest of the hills, something that happens quite often and is always a delight. Well, it wasn’t on today. Perhaps Madera was saving a little for bigger guests. We just got a normal cloud layer, even diffuse light on the green oaks and ridge lines and a bit of freeway poking around one corner behind the pool. It is a view that I enjoy and I am pleased to have been seated near the large windows and facing them so I could look out and savor those hills and ridges and trees, even if they didn’t include any spectacular falling clouds in evening light. Maybe next time, maybe I can be on the lookout. We were there for brunch.

    I am glad to say that the food was every bit as carefully selected and prepared as the atmosphere. Lemons were bright, greens were perfectly crisp and fresh, vegetables each a piece of art, and all the entrees were just so. This is dependable quality, reliable luxury. The people back there preparing this stuff are perfectionists and notice the details and address them. They probably use tweezers. They are craftsmen- people, crafts-people, and highly skilled technicians of food. An overseer is directing this orchestra, the menu was very coherent, none of the dishes were present only to fill a hole. I can see why it’s not the spot right now, but also, please, for the hope of letting us keep some nice things, do not throw out this gem. Everything was delicious and perfect and to me worth every penny. I would go again anytime I wanted that experience. It ranks with Dio Deka, another house of perfected food that I have experienced lately. I cannot imagine ever being disappointed by either. Nor would I go there to be surprised or wowed or shown something new. You go to a place like this because you know exactly what you are going to get and it is going to be as perfect as possible because all imperfections have been either edited out or that thing is just not possible to serve right now so it will not be offered. The gluten-free Lemon and Ricotta pancakes were absolutely worth every bite and they are also among the least “California” dishes on the menu. The avocado toast was a work of art, a living still life, right down to the jammy egg on top. The artichoke hummus was so amazing that I couldn’t resist the drop of oil that had fallen on the table because the lemon infused-ness was that good. The mixed vegetables looked like something out of a painting and the green goddess dressing was bright and tangy and frankly a small revelation that such things are still made with such attention and care in today’s world.

    I haven’t mentioned the staff. They were excellent. And invisible. There to do their job, all elegantly poised and perfectly dressed and immaculate. Frankly a bit of the Edwardian house staff about them, a little upstairs/downstairs in the air. I’m not sure how that would have arrived here on the western end of the world, but I swear I felt it. Must have come with the clientele. It did take a few minutes longer than we thought it should to get some extra slices of bread for the remaining hummus. I assume they needed to bake and slice it and butter it at just the right temperature and the baker was refusing to rush the cooling period, that bread would be perfecto when it reached the table or there would be blood on the kitchen floor. That we even asked for it probably betrayed that we’re not that clientele. Who knows.

    Have a comment? Leave one on the post, or email me about it.

    ]]>    Palo Altohttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/palo-alto/Sat, 02 May 2026 20:19:10 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/palo-alto/I haven’t been on University Ave in possibly eight, maybe nine, years. Not since before the pandemic. It’s changed. It’s the same.

    There are rich people. I mean really rich people. There are normal folks. There are homeless and beggars and buskers and panhandlers. There are people that are probably high, but who can really say. Maybe they’re just high on life. Or they don’t feel like wearing a shirt. What I am saying is that the people watching is good.

    ]]>    Tags: #dispatches #photos #walking #places

    I haven’t been on University Ave in possibly eight, maybe nine, years. Not since before the pandemic. It’s changed. It’s the same.

    There are rich people. I mean really rich people. There are normal folks. There are homeless and beggars and buskers and panhandlers. There are people that are probably high, but who can really say. Maybe they’re just high on life. Or they don’t feel like wearing a shirt. What I am saying is that the people watching is good.

    The chrome clad side entrance, now closed, to the CVS on University Ave in Palo Alto, California.
    The most chrome CVS.

    The CVS in Palo Alto has timed safes and doesn’t stock promethazine with Codeine anymore. At The RealReal, the security guard has to press a button to unlock and open the door for every customer. To let them in. And to let them out. Maybe the streets of Palo Alto are just like that now.

    We walked down University Ave and got a juice at Joe’s. Mostly just to use the bathroom, but also to get a juice. The accent pink is an off-Pepto. That’s a weird choice for a cafe.

    We walked back up and contemplated moving our cars. The signs seemed to say we didn’t need to, but they were a lot of words. Jeff told the story of the signs around the Smithsonian. How they were easily misunderstood by tourists, and lots of cars are towed every day at 3pm. He’d been lucky and seen the line of tow trucks on their daily mission. Palo Alto doesn’t seem like that kind of place, but I don’t know. We left the cars where they were. They were there when we came back later.

    We kept walking up, looking for our dinner, and passed another Joe’s. A different Joe’s. I’m sure of it. Seems odd to put two Joe & The Juice bars within a couple of blocks of each other. Maybe a questionable pink isn’t their only problem. Maybe I’m hungry. Then again, I’ve seen the Starbucks diagonally across the intersection from each other. So, again, I don’t know.

    A spray painted QR code and text for the Beeple Infinite Loop mid-career show.
    The QR code still works.

    Beeple has been by recently. That’s cool, I’m curious. It’s an ad. Coulda been some secret and cool art piece. You can go to his retrospective show, if that’s your thing.

    You know what the standout at dinner was? The elevator. Darkest elevator I’ve been in. The best mood lighting I’ve ever seen. Who could resist it? Goes between two floors, a short trip, and has a disconcerting jolt when it goes down. Unaccountable how it got there, got in this restaurant. The chicken was quite good too. But that elevator. Probably worth a detour if you are into it.

    Have a comment? Leave one on the post, or email me about it.

    ]]>    Art of the Americas Gallerieshttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/art-of-the-americas/Fri, 01 May 2026 17:48:40 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/art-of-the-americas/I liked the Arts of the Americas exhibit of older and new indigenous work. The extractive colonialism moved me; I didn’t take any pictures. It felt disrespectful. I don’t know how well the museum addressed this.

    The Teotihuacan mural pieces from the elite’s compound were cool, but they had been brutally hammered out of the wall. They were literal fragments. Dated to the 3rd-8th century, I guess, found in situ centuries later by some European or a looter seeking sellable wares. Like a rich person said “I want” and pointed and it was taken. No regard for the surrounding stuff.

    ]]>    Tags: #art #dispatches

    I liked the Arts of the Americas exhibit of older and new indigenous work. The extractive colonialism moved me; I didn’t take any pictures. It felt disrespectful. I don’t know how well the museum addressed this.

    The Teotihuacan mural pieces from the elite’s compound were cool, but they had been brutally hammered out of the wall. They were literal fragments. Dated to the 3rd-8th century, I guess, found in situ centuries later by some European or a looter seeking sellable wares. Like a rich person said “I want” and pointed and it was taken. No regard for the surrounding stuff.

    I have no idea if that’s how it happened. The museum didn’t have any provenance written there that I saw. No story of how these beautiful things got here and when, or if, respect re-entered the story. They were in a somber room, darkened and set off; the museum manipulating the viewers emotions, or legit care, I don’t know.

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    ]]>    power cuthttps://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/power-cut/Thu, 30 Apr 2026 08:53:44 -0700justin@areyouelectronic.com (Justin Garofoli)https://www.areyouelectronic.com/posts/2026/power-cut/The power went out for a few hours yesterday afternoon.1 The alerts said that a “third party” had caused damage to the equipment. I find it strange that a power outage isn’t an unwelcome interruption, it’s a moment of enforced respite from a relentless wfh grind. In our neighborhood the cell service is a poor substitute when the power goes out. I don’t know if this is a universal experience as everyone switches from their wifi to LTE or 5G. Another neighbor complained that their AT&T cell service was not helpful either. We have Verizon. It meant that from 2 pm to 5 pm both Ali and I couldn’t work. We sat on the porch to get a better signal and felt the first drops of rain from the promised storm and played mobile games while updating colleagues that we were out of commission for a while. When that was done, we read books printed on actual paper. The rain never really started, at least not until hours later. A few drops fell now and then as the clouds thickened and the light dimmed. It got harder to read. I moved to a chair by the window to see better. By 4:30, I had decided a nap would be a good use of my time. Just before 5 the power came back on, the dishwasher resumed from where it had left off, and the refrigerator began again to make its soothing whirring sounds.2 This “third party” had given my wife and I a break from busy and stressful days. We were bored, read a book, and had a quick nap.

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    The power went out for a few hours yesterday afternoon.1 The alerts said that a “third party” had caused damage to the equipment. I find it strange that a power outage isn’t an unwelcome interruption, it’s a moment of enforced respite from a relentless wfh grind. In our neighborhood the cell service is a poor substitute when the power goes out. I don’t know if this is a universal experience as everyone switches from their wifi to LTE or 5G. Another neighbor complained that their AT&T cell service was not helpful either. We have Verizon. It meant that from 2 pm to 5 pm both Ali and I couldn’t work. We sat on the porch to get a better signal and felt the first drops of rain from the promised storm and played mobile games while updating colleagues that we were out of commission for a while. When that was done, we read books printed on actual paper. The rain never really started, at least not until hours later. A few drops fell now and then as the clouds thickened and the light dimmed. It got harder to read. I moved to a chair by the window to see better. By 4:30, I had decided a nap would be a good use of my time. Just before 5 the power came back on, the dishwasher resumed from where it had left off, and the refrigerator began again to make its soothing whirring sounds.2 This “third party” had given my wife and I a break from busy and stressful days. We were bored, read a book, and had a quick nap.

    1. This was a couple of weeks ago, on the 20th of April. ↩︎

    2. Soothing to me, grating to Ali. ↩︎

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