It's the end of the month already? Man. Last month my cofounders and I set a goal that we want to hit by the equinox ("No one wonders if it's like, the fiscal equinox") and I realized the other day that we're already about halfway there. Plus – fire, fireworks, COVID, a bonkers Presidential election – I'm one bundle of teens pouring out of the smashed window of a Jack in the Box away from thinking it's 2020 again.

For the future anthropologists reading this: Despite the echoes there's a really different feeling right now than this time in 2020. That summer was frantic and edgy. This one's got a lot of energy – and there are people trying to get us back to that disaster vibe – but – I dunno – society-as-a-whole has escaped TheGlobalChatroomSlashAnxietyReflectionMatrix and I think everyone's chilled out a lot.

Maybe it's just me. Anyway– I'm Nat Bennett, and you're reading Mere Being.

More thoughts on the election later in this newsletter – couldn't help myself – but it's down at the bottom so if you want to skip it, it's easy.

On Writing

Hit my goals for the weekly newsletter this month. Writing prose, writing Bash, taking notes, an argument that making things is good, and a bit about platforms that I was surprised to see get some response – usually when I write about infrastructure it's dead dead dead.

Writing has felt like a little bit of a struggle this month, though. I've been writing a ton – but most of it's not actually making it out – for each of those pieces I mentioned I've written probably 1.5 more that are sitting somewhere in my drafts – not finished or too personal or just too weird. Like I've got this long-ish piece about the fundamental mathematical nature of the universe, why there's something rather than nothing, and how that affects my approach to software development.

Probably gets filed under "good problems to have" but it does mean I'm spending more time on writing than I'd really like.

On programming

The somewhat-secret project hit a milestone this month – we're now using it to host our own work. This has changed my relationship to it tremendously – I'm now aware of lots of little details that I hadn't really been noticing because I wasn't really in it.

This project has me living the fine details of human-computer interactions which has been crazy fun – it's fundamentally a domain-specific document editor, so it's fundamentally (1) very GUI-driven and (2) the most important users will have up all day. Big difference from my usual stuff, which is either directly-interfaced only by other computers, or is some kind of complex form system that is really a configuration system for something else that's the real thing people are paying for.

That said, it's kind of a return to where I started in software, on medical note-taking systems, which are also "domain-specific document editors." Is this the purest form, capital-S software? Arguably that title properly applies to complete automation – systems that entirely replace book-keeping, transaction-recording human beings – but I do think there's something special about document editors to our field.

Still writing about that French cake book

– on eating in cities

Gateau bills itself as a book about "French cakes" but it's also a book specifically about Parisian cakes, and Parisian home-cooking in general.

Parisians don't: Make things at home that they can buy better versions of.

Parisians do: Assemble things at home that they bought.

So: We've been eating an unusual amount of strawberry shortcake. Strawberries, shortcake, and – this is critical – crême fraiche. Just the assembly at home.

We've been cooking at home a lot more recently because we've scaled "cooking" back to: pan-fry a pork loin and sauté some vegetables – mostly squash. This is, again, enabled by a good urban grocery store – in our case, Bi-rite, which sells a bunch of different pre-salted, pre-marinated meat. It feels a little bit dumb how much more manageable this makes cooking at home – pre-salting meat isn't hard but it does require planning ahead. Sometimes that's achievable, lately it's mostly been not.

One of the main ways I rate grocery stores: How variable is the produce? Especially cosmetically. I was in a "normal" grocery store recently and there were two big differences in the produce. I was expecting one – less variety – but I was surprised to see that all the e.g. squashes were exactly the same size.

"Just a profoundly weird man"

I try not to write about current events here. Despite the immediacy of the newsletter format I want the archives to feel at least a little bit timeless – re-readable.

But I gotta talk about this because all I can think about for the past few days is that right now, in this moment – post-Biden announcement, pre-convention – the Democrats and the Republicans are running exactly the same campaign.

The Republican started with the message that Harris is TOO WEIRD, TOO SEXY, and TOO ETHNIC to be President. Her laugh is strange! She's a DEI hire! She slept her way to the top!

Meanwhile, the Harris campaign is picking up endorsements like "Kamala IS brat" and holding calls titled "White Dudes for Kamala Harris" and "Cat Ladies for Kamala Harris."

And meanwhile– my god, these people can campaign. Democrats are getting on television and literally calling Donald Trump and JD Vance "weird" and describing their ideas as "super weird." This is the best idea a Democratic campaign has had in my lifetime. It's short. It's funny. It's incredibly easy to come up with your own punchy example – a critical feature in the social media era. We have finally found a message that unites the entire party. Donald Trump is a weird dude.

What I think really works about this as a message is: It's re-mixable. It's a "build your own joke" kit that invites you to remind everyone of your personal favorite Strange Trump Moment. This seems – not just powerful but maybe even necessary in a world where publishing is highly distributed.

I have to caveat this with: We'll see if it lasts? But dang, politics are kinda fun right now. And as long as the Trump campaigns message stays, "I'm your racist grandpa. My opponent is a socially awkward MILF. Who do YOU want picking up the phone at 2am?" ... I feel like she's has got a chance?

Another note for future anthropologists: I was not personally a big fan of Harris in the primary. I was mildly dreading the notion of Presidential Candidate Harris. Partly this was policy, but I also just kind of... did not like her. I've been surprised by how fast I've warmed up. Maybe it's just learning that she cooks?

And not just cooks, I mean– in 2019 her campaign made a YouTube cooking show. She makes turkey stock. As someone who once got swept up in the spirit of the Fourth of July and accidentally made chicken stock that we didn't end up actually even using "because we had the carcass around" – I'm into it. Turns out I'm basically a "the candidate I'd like to have a beer with" vote – I just don't care about beer.