Monday, April 13, 2020

A day spent juggling technology. Working with others from our homes is trickier than it seems. Lots of different programs claim to do everything, but we end up using one program for screen sharing, another for taking notes, a third for text messages, and a fourth for working remotely on machines in the office. After trying several tools for teleconferencing and talking, with and without video, we speak on the phone. On my own network, I juggle a patchwork of operating systems and devices. I thought I had revived my Linux box. I hadn’t. It’s unusable. Something keeps injecting streams of periods into the typing buffer. Someone knocked it off a table years ago at ComicCon. I don’t think it ever recovered. I step outside for under a minute to retrieve my laundry from the porch. None of the cats are there. I spend some time researching food delivery from restaurants. The market is large, but has abruptly shifted. Rather than delivering to busy offices, they need to get the food to homes where people work alone. The Industrial Zone is probably a ghost town. It once held factories and processing plants, but is now filled with shiny towers with tech logos. When I first got here, I interviewed in interchangeable offices in the Zone. They all tried to be quirky and distinctive in pretty much the same way. Shops and restaurants there usually cater to those who work in the towers. Now, I suspect, most of the traffic consists of people on motorcycles, delivering food from the eateries to people elsewhere. The services look quite good. Some even have free delivery and discounts off the listed prices. This may change. There are fewer economies of scale when the meals go to more widely separated places. I immediately want to try everything. I hold off, at least until after Passover. There will be plenty of time to try things then.