Recently there was some online commentary on how every version of iOS makes older iPhones run more slowly. The conspiracy theorists like to see this as a deliberate action by Apple to force people to upgrade. I doubt this for two reasons, first the Apple fans are already super keen to upgrade to the latest and greatest iDevice and I can't see how Apple would benefit from the likely damage to its reputation from pulling a trick like that.
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Friday, September 22, 2017
Transformation day 52
It's been a very long time since I posted an update. There's a number of reasons for this, I've been a bit down because of stress about some unrelated things, I do regret deciding to document certain changes to youknowwhat, and progress has slowed.
Four days back I had a check-in with my counsellor at the hospital, booked before I started HRT. During the session I felt like a bit of a fake because everything was going well. He did raise his eyebrows when I said I now felt a lot less pressure to strive for a more feminine look since starting HRT, then used the term "Performance Art" about how I was dressing before. I needed to explain how when how I dressed was the only way to signal my mental state it was much more important than it is now that there were real changes happening in my body. In retrospect a very poor choice of words when talking to someone not in the entertainment world. We agreed that I don't need to book any more sessions with him unless something comes up that is concerning me.
Four days back I had a check-in with my counsellor at the hospital, booked before I started HRT. During the session I felt like a bit of a fake because everything was going well. He did raise his eyebrows when I said I now felt a lot less pressure to strive for a more feminine look since starting HRT, then used the term "Performance Art" about how I was dressing before. I needed to explain how when how I dressed was the only way to signal my mental state it was much more important than it is now that there were real changes happening in my body. In retrospect a very poor choice of words when talking to someone not in the entertainment world. We agreed that I don't need to book any more sessions with him unless something comes up that is concerning me.
Wednesday, September 06, 2017
Three years, mostly smokefree
Back at day 1000 I was expecting to be on quit-line posting about my 3rd anniversary of quitting today. Unfortunately there's a couple of reasons why that won't be happening.
I've been struggling the last few months. Some know some details and some don't. Let's just say Julia's world is not all choirs of angels serenading the unicorns that trot across the rainbow bridge. There has been a period where I was having the odd cigarette as a crutch and there were days where there were several. I never got back into full-on smoking but it was a close run thing. I've smoked on two of the last 13 days and it's been 7 days since my last cigarette. I feel like I'm free of them now, but I felt that a few times earlier too.
I really don't feel much like celebrating three years. No I don't intend adjusting or resetting my quit date. 6 September 2014 is still the date I went from being an incorrigible 30 a day smoker to someone who is mostly smoke free. I have recently gone from someone who was 99% smoke free to 95% and am still working on my quit; but it's the same quit. In any case no other date really makes any sense to me.
The second reason is that even before the above struggles Quit-line had become toxic for me. I was turned off by some of the behaviour I witnessed there; behaviour I saw as intolerant and bullying. Sure there were many supportive people and voices of reason, but there was a large enough minority of the others to put me off.
For better or worse I haven't been going there much of late and very few of my cohort are still regulars. When I was starting out I saw names that were unknown to me as they were never there and only popped in to post what seemed incredibly large numbers of days. I vowed to myself that I wouldn't be one of them, if I ceased being a regular contributor and stopped recognising the regulars I'd quietly retire from posting to the site.
When I go there now I also feel professionally angry at the new software. No matter how many times I say "Remember me" it never does, I can't page through the blogs, I can't look at the blogs of the people I supported and they still haven't loaded in the old blogs.
I've spent 40 years developing computer software and I can't remember seeing an upgrade as incompetent as Quit-line's mess. It looks like it was thrown together in a hurry by a high school student for a mid-week homework assignment. Actually that's not fair, most of the student programmers I've known would have done a far better job.
I've been struggling the last few months. Some know some details and some don't. Let's just say Julia's world is not all choirs of angels serenading the unicorns that trot across the rainbow bridge. There has been a period where I was having the odd cigarette as a crutch and there were days where there were several. I never got back into full-on smoking but it was a close run thing. I've smoked on two of the last 13 days and it's been 7 days since my last cigarette. I feel like I'm free of them now, but I felt that a few times earlier too.
I really don't feel much like celebrating three years. No I don't intend adjusting or resetting my quit date. 6 September 2014 is still the date I went from being an incorrigible 30 a day smoker to someone who is mostly smoke free. I have recently gone from someone who was 99% smoke free to 95% and am still working on my quit; but it's the same quit. In any case no other date really makes any sense to me.
The second reason is that even before the above struggles Quit-line had become toxic for me. I was turned off by some of the behaviour I witnessed there; behaviour I saw as intolerant and bullying. Sure there were many supportive people and voices of reason, but there was a large enough minority of the others to put me off.
For better or worse I haven't been going there much of late and very few of my cohort are still regulars. When I was starting out I saw names that were unknown to me as they were never there and only popped in to post what seemed incredibly large numbers of days. I vowed to myself that I wouldn't be one of them, if I ceased being a regular contributor and stopped recognising the regulars I'd quietly retire from posting to the site.
When I go there now I also feel professionally angry at the new software. No matter how many times I say "Remember me" it never does, I can't page through the blogs, I can't look at the blogs of the people I supported and they still haven't loaded in the old blogs.
I've spent 40 years developing computer software and I can't remember seeing an upgrade as incompetent as Quit-line's mess. It looks like it was thrown together in a hurry by a high school student for a mid-week homework assignment. Actually that's not fair, most of the student programmers I've known would have done a far better job.
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