Unbelievable. I struggled with this the whole day. Checked the ISP status. Thought, it could be overheating (router is in the garage) or bad RJ-45. Had to reboot multiple times today. Never ever I would have guessed it was a firmware issue.
Thank you for writing this blogpost. I just upgraded firmware. So happy when something has an explanation. !
The garage could be the coldest area in the building, or the hottest. Things happen, too...dust clogging ventilation, animals build a nest around it, router placed near refrigerator coils, etc.
I appreciate that you must live in a cooler climate. This is not the case everywhere. My garage cooks on a bad day. Great for the hot water heater, not so great for everything else.
Be warned, there's a "woo-woo shit" risk factor here, which my skepticism keeps at arm's length. I'm more of a neuroscience / mindfulness meditation kind of guy. But I do cherry-pick from other areas, where my curiosity takes me. And the original quotes were good cherries.
Reframing the "nothing is ever personal" idea in more neuroscience terms:
some astonishing high degree of our neurological processes (90+% ?) are subconscious or preconscious. A similar percentage of neurons are formed before the age of 18. In many ways, the quest to improve ourselves reduces down to the skill of paying slightly more attention to the activity of our minds.
So when someone interacts with you in a way that causes you stress or hostility, you can choose to recognize the above facts as playing out in the arena of their brain, in the same way as they are playing out in yours.
This is not to excuse behavior, nor disregard the need for boundaries, protection, standing up for yourself, etc. But it does take the sting off. What's better for your own equanimity? Succumbing to a feeling of being singled out? Or recognizing your counterpart as being stuck in their own behavior loop, unaware that they're (arguably) in a state of some kind of suffering?
Socializing is our most complex and wonderful skill; there are a ton of attendant instincts that evolved with it: status signaling, negotiation and exchange; hierarchies for coordinating group actions; grudges and revenge as deterrents meant to preserve social harmony (see chimpanzee behavior; then see bonobo behavior for something more inspiring). All of this monkey software can be dialed down, even outright idled at times. Because nothing is ever personal.
These are some truly advanced and empowering concepts, so apologies if I'm probably not representing them properly.
The evolutionary biologist Diana Fleischman is currently writing a book (a bit tongue-in-cheek) called "How To Train Your Boyfriend". She's discussed the ideas in a few talks and podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jre_xN2HSrk
I am writing this (comment), as I put my son to sleep. He is almost 4 & wants me to be in the room as he drifts to sleep. So i am sitting beside his bed (after an evening full of quality time with him), checking up on left over work for the day (& hackernews)
We just had the second one - who is 3 months old now. So it's still adjusting phase for all of us at home. Sometimes, I just wonder, how people have/manage time with 3 or 4 kids. I seem to be struggling with 2.
Let me write down, what works for me/us:
1. Early dinner & 8 pm bed time for kids gives me 2-3 hours every night. Sometimes, I choose to work on side projects/hobbies. Sometimes, I just binge watch netflix with my wife. Sometimes, I make my kids bedtime my own & wake up early next morning. It depends.
2. On weekends, afternoons - I can easily get a couple of hours - when kids go to nap. Of course, this is not working out recently, as our new born colludes with the elder one - and they nap at different times.
3. What really would help me - and i struggle with this - if i have clear priorities in my head - what I want to achieve in the 'extra time' that I have got. The clearer the goal, better the results.
Ultimately, I have realized, kids give me far more joy than anything work related can. However, hats off to all of us parents - who are juggling of priorities - work - life & trying to do the best we can.
We've got 3: 4,2, and 9 months. Thank goodness they all sleep (relatively) well.
The baby goes down at 6 and the older ones go down at 7:30 (really, we start the process at like 7, targeting 7:30). We're also incredibly lucky that bedtime isn't much of a fight, it goes pretty smoothly so we're not all ragged for the rest of the night.
I usually don't count on doing anything beyond trivial at all after they go to bed- it's full on cleanup and relax time unless there's an actual work emergency. Or, usually a couple times a week when it's above 30 degrees in the garage, I'll be out there doing some woodworking or wrenching on the motorcycles.
We've started watching a lot of Netflix stand up specials because a) we just wrapped up a day in the life of three kids under five and two startups and b) they're just long enough to watch one and decide to call it an early night.
I don't even try and squeeze in code or learning during the weekend when the kids are awake because I'll spend the entire time stressing about when they're going to interrupt me, that they did interrupt me, or that I should be playing with them instead of [whatever].
I get up early just about every single morning, usually before 5, and I get my time in then. On the weekdays that buys me around 4 hours every morning before I have to start my 'real work', on the weekends it gives me a couple hours. I try to make my hay during the week as I've got my own office outside the house, and I get a lot more done a lot faster there.
What has been helpful, though I'm certainly not over it yet, has been to just not try and cram things in during the day between naps for the kids. It just wound up with a lot of anxiety and clock watching. Instead, when I'm at home I'm trying to be present, trying to stay off the phone or computer, and just trying to quiet my mind by being busy with the family until bed time. Once they're asleep then I can do whatever I want with whatever energy I have left.
> What really would help me - and i struggle with this - if i have clear priorities in my head - what I want to achieve in the 'extra time' that I have got. The clearer the goal, better the results.
I suffered with the same thing. I started using dynalist (https://dynalist.io/) to list down whenever i felt like i wanted to do something. Later when i have free time, i just go to the list and see what i can finish in the time i've got. It offers a very intuitive interface to map/organise ideas. An alternative to it is Workflowy (https://workflowy.com/).
This is roughly my story with the added note that I find that Github activity inversely correlates to how much Netflix I watch. I currently average about 3hrs /wk of TV time and probably about 15hrs/wk on personal projects.
> 'but I'm starting to realize that you can't just be a spectator, you have to be a part of something bigger. Maybe by trying to solve a problem, investigating an issue and creating a documentary, or fighting for something important.'
That's so true. Once you are a part of something bigger, the experiences, adventure and thrill land up on their own. This applies not only to travel, but every part of life.
Thank you for writing this blogpost. I just upgraded firmware. So happy when something has an explanation. !