2026-01-17 02:40:00
I've been thinking about people getting annoyed at Apple lately (myself included) and how the quality of goods and services seems to be going downhill.
There once was a time when if you experienced a crappy mass-market product or service, you would simply switch to a better one and this would result in companies striving to improve their products and regain your custom. Vote with your wallet as the advice goes. Unfortunately, today's mass-market offerings seemed to have regressed to being variations of the same thing in different packaging.
I remember when Steve Jobs announced the iPod in 2001. Was it the first MP3 player? No. But Apple took the concept and made something iconic that we still remember fondly over two decades later. He did it again with the iPhone in 2007.
That type of innovation doesn't seem to happen anymore. Can you remember a recent product or service announcement that actually made you gasp? When it wasn't just an incremental upgrade over what came before? Look at how many megapixels the new camera has! And it comes in a titanium finish! Woohoo.
Corporate behemoths, like Apple, have such enormous market share and penetration that even if they dish out dull products, they will still have a massive flow of sales. It would take a monumental product or PR disaster to cause enough people to turn away to such an effect it would harm their business.
There also has to be a better alternative for people to switch to. But if that option is equally bad, then what's the point?
So consumers simply stick to whichever product suits them the best, and there's really not a lot in it, because these companies are all sticking to the same playbook - do it cheap, hire minimal staff, earn maximum revenue!
Some people switch to lesser-known alternatives, or go back to using older generation products. But this is not going to have enough impact to make the big players up their game because unfortunately most people are too reliant on the mass-market offerings. What forces corporations to do better? Knowing they are going to lose revenue and that's all there is to it.
Why is Facebook such a dated, poorly designed app? It doesn't even have a dark mode! But with 3 BILLION active users, there's no competition, so Meta has no incentive to do better. Microsoft has perhaps the most infamously bad OS, but Apple sadly appears to be headed down the same road. Amazon is dreadful to browse, overflowing with cheap tat and fake reviews. Dare I mention the brainrot being fed through YouTube/Tiktok etc?
Big name grocery stores hike prices and sell the same stuff for the same price. Fast food chains offer less options, cheaper ingredients, but cost more. Appliances barely last a few years before needing replacement. Everything is being compacted into the lowest level of quality and service and we're becoming used to it because it's now the norm.
Why do companies not address our concerns? Because a minimum-wage, or out-sourced employee will be the unfortunate soul dealing with any complaint, or increasingly an AI chatbot that sends you round in circles. Bezos will never know (and certainly not care) that something went wrong with your Amazon purchase.
We need forward-thinking, consumer-friendly companies to enter the markets and give them a damn good shake-up. Make the incumbents realise they are at real risk of seeing a dent in their obscene revenue and only then will they act. Never in the interests of the consumer of course, but to save their precious bottom line.
Saying all that, as bleak as things sound, change will eventually come. There's really no such thing as being too big to fail. Let's hope it's sooner rather than later.
2026-01-16 22:16:00
i wanted to try my hand at joining the bear carnival, which i think might be a great exercise in blogging for me! this month's theme is "how i ______", hosted by steven of tanzi media. i thought it'd be fun to share the different ways i brew tea and invite others to join me in celebrating asian tea!
sometime early last year, i attended a local coffee festival with my family. we were there mostly because my brother is an aspiring home barista and wanted to check out different coffeeware and beans. i'm not super huge on coffee so the stall that caught my eye was a small one being run by a friendly looking guy holding a sign that read "come drink tea with me!". he started the tea session by introducing gōngfuchá (功夫茶/工夫茶) to us, explaining what the preparation method entails and why it is practiced. he let our small class try three different teas that day: taiwanese duckshit oolong, a laotian green tea, and japanese gyokuro. i've always been a tea person but this was my first deep dive into chinese tea preparation methods and i was immediately obsessed.
when i visited hong kong a couple of months after, i made sure to include a tea class in my itinerary where i was instructed on how to use each piece of a gongfu tea set. ever since then, i've rarely brewed my loose leaf tea any other way.
this is by no means definitive — especially because i'm lacking in some of the fancier equipment, but i did buy a gongfu tea set that had all of the essentials so that is what i will explain.
i like practicing gongfucha because i think it gives me a lot of mileage out of my tea. it's really interesting being able to have the same three grams of tea leaves taste entirely different depending on how many infusions you've done; whereas brewing your tea in one big teapot gives you more of an "average" of the flavor. because of how slow the process is, i also think it gives me more time to wind down and really appreciate or study what i'm drinking :)
as a fan of asian tea, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that i happen to enjoy drinking matcha. matcha has become quite popular lately, though mostly in the form of a latte. don't get me wrong, i enjoy matcha lattes too! i just wish there was a bit more appreciation for drinking usucha (thin tea) and koicha (thick tea) especially because everyone seems to be obsessed with "ceremonial grade" matcha — which doesn't even really exist, mind you.
i think it's more appropriate to categorize matcha quality into culinary grade, usucha grade, and koicha grade. a lot of the matcha influencers seem to recommend for lattes are usucha and koicha grade, which isn't bad, but sometimes not very cost efficient or a good fit. milk severely cuts down flavor. for example, i love yamamasa koyamaen's samidori in lattes but yamamasa koyamaen's more expensive offering shikibu-no-mukashi is dreadful in lattes. its flavor profile is far too mild for milk, where it completely disappears. on its own however, it is delightfully creamy and full of umami. i could go on about the misinformation surrounding matcha but i'm going to cut my rant short and just tell you how i brew it, which is what you came here for.
i don't normally drink my lattes with sweetener, but if you want to use one i think maple syrup or simple syrup pairs the best with matcha. if you want to make your own, either earl grey syrup or banana cinnamon syrup are great choices and easy to make at home! you can replace the milk with water for a matchacano and the matcha powder with hojicha for a hojicha latte by the way! :)
there you go! that's how i brew my tea. i still use a good ol' classic teapot when i need a big batch but that's not too often these days. i do also want to stress that i often tweak my brewing process according to the tea i'm drinking, but what i've written is what i would consider my "standard". i hope this was helpful and informative for anyone looking to try experiencing tea in a new way. i'm no expert but if you have questions (and especially corrections) or just want to chat tea, feel free to contact me!
happy brewing, bear :)
an item used to hold tea before it is poured into tea cups, ensuring that everyone gets the same quality brew!↩
a "tray" where you place all of your teaware during tea preparation. it's meant to catch all of the excess water.↩
fun fact! did you know that whisking tea originated in china during the song dynasty?↩
2026-01-16 21:42:14
In some book on Jiddu Krishnamurti (that I can no longer find nor remember), an elderly woman who is grieving the loss of her husband happens to meet Krishnamurti, declaring to him that she would give anything to have him—her husband—back. Instead of giving the usual, automatic, socially acceptable responses, Krishnamurti asks her: What year? What age? What era of your late husband’s life is he going to be in when you bring him back?
The point, of course, is that he’s simultaneously revealing her selfishness and her idealizations, whilst exposing her grief as mourning not the total reality of her husband, but her idea of him, her memory, the role he played in her psychological economy.
This exact same point applies to all notions of ‘Return’ or, in the more infantilized form, RETVRN!
When the woman in question finally had her husband back from the dead in the idealized state, wouldn’t it be the case, then, that she would not want him to age? Not want him to change? Because in doing so, surely they would enter into the exact same dilemma once again?
This exact same understanding is present in contemporaneously prevalent notions of political return. It’s not the case that one of these infantile, political fetishists desires to return to some prior political reality and have that reality move back to where they now are, no, that would be nonsensical. It is apparent that any notion of return is both return and stasis. The prior state is idealized as somehow ‘correct’ or ‘better’, a state from which we should have never moved.
This is an utterly infantile and life-denying position. Telling of a psychologically stunted, trembling, and ultimately, fearful mind that wants nothing more than to return to the womb and nap until death.
To return to an idealized time is to presuppose a time and place where things would be such that everything was just right. Of course, like the example of the grieving woman, everything would be just right for you. To return is to believe that the world, the earth, and ultimately life should stop just for your vague, nostalgic whims.
You want to be a soldier? A prospector? A homesteader? A fucking knight? Pull your head out of your ass and accept the only time you have is now. An entire lifetime spent elsewhere, dreaming of how things should be, despite the fact that the words should, could, but, and if all denote the fact that things are not as you are stating them to be.
This is masturbatory suffering. The mental engagement with an objectively impossible fantasy that both bolsters one’s self-righteousness, whilst also allowing a high degree of justified melancholy. Woe is me, I don’t get to be a crusader. Get a grip.
Guess what, you got modernity. That’s when you were born, that’s when you will die, and that is, like it or lump it, the consciousness you have inherited. And, every single romantic fantasy you’ve developed has been filtered via that modern consciousness.
Where does it end? How about we send you back to WW2, and you can fight them on the beaches? But then, maybe seeing your buddy's guts get blown out will be too much. Back to the Frontier, and you can be a rootin’ tootin’ cowboy. But then, maybe you’ll get bored with treating your VD with vinegar? 6th-century Britain, and you can fight alongside King Arthur. But then, what if the armor is a bit too heavy and the hair shirt chafes? Let’s send your ass back to the caves! Maybe you’ll be the da Vinci of cave paintings….but then, hunting a mammoth might be tough? I tell you what, let’s send you back the ontological prenatal state, where you can exist in the warmth of the abstract cosmic mother womb. Cosy.
If you want to entertain yourself, state that what is should be otherwise.
If you want to suffer, push against what is.
If you want to live, be.
Give up.
2026-01-16 19:11:00
I picked up a few more stickers for my laptop from a lovely little shop here in Chiang Mai today.
They had baskets full of them, and me being me, I of course had to check every single one. And there it was. One lone Bear sticker among hundreds of other designs.
Did the person who made it have the Bear blogging platform in mind? Probably not. Maybe it’s a nod to the Bear notes app, some Bear Grylls utility gear, or something completely different.
Who knows. It doesn’t really matter. I know what it means to me, and that’s enough.
The same goes for the Bear blogging platform itself. Some think it’s too simple, some think it’s too complicated, and some absolutely love it. I know why I like it, and that’s all that matters.
Is it the right tool for you? Maybe. Maybe not.
Pick what suits you.
Happy blogging!
2026-01-16 09:34:00
There's kind of an unspoken rule (or maybe it's a spoken rule; probably written often on the internet) to refrain from sharing news of a pregnancy until you've made it past the first trimester. 12 weeks. Anything could happen—miscarriages in the first trimester are extremely common.
Good thing my bear is anonymous 'cause boy, do I need to write about this new unplanned adventure!
I want to tell my family. I'm close with my parents, and not telling them seems like insanity! But I'm prone to miscarriage and I've miscarried before. Un-telling people is a massive burden. So it doesn't feel safe to tell almost anyone. I thought about just telling my sister; my nephew's mother. He's going to have a little cousin! She's not a great secret-keeper, though. No one in my family is... I'm pretty good at keeping secretes when I need to. But TWELVE WEEKS?? Well, I suppose it's only 8.
I found out very early, by typical standards. I'm 4 weeks and 1 day along. Baby is barely implanted. (This measurement seems dumb. I was not pregnant 4 weeks ago. But based on how they measure, that's where I'm at.) I have an Oura ring which predicts my cycle very accurately. It has never been wrong, or even off by a day or two, in the 10 months that I've had it. So when it appeared to be wrong, I thought "probably not, but I'll take a test just to get it off my mind."
When I saw the test was positive, I froze. My husband was upstairs, unaware. I sat there for probably 10 minutes, trying to figure out how I felt. More afraid than joyous, I also felt guilty. I knew how I was supposed to feel, and I wasn't feeling it.
Do I want this? The world is such shit. What happens to my career? How do I tell my husband? What would I even say?
I went with "Hey... You busy?" which we both laughed about later.
We weren't sure right away. We've waffled over the years on whether we want to have kids. There are factors that gave us pause. Are we doing this?
We slept on it. This morning we got up, he went to work and I stayed home sick (actually sick, with COVID of all things). We texted a bit during the day about what direction we were leaning. When he got home, we made the decision together. We're going to be parents, if my body will cooperate. I do want this. My career doesn't have to end. I can still work towards my goals. Together, we'll raise a good kid.
2026-01-15 22:55:38
Ahoy there!
I, and probably you, have seen a lot of these videos of anecdotes from various teachers about how bad Gen Alpha is doing. Lacking basic reading and arithmetic skills, emotional dysregulation, no respect for teachers. The list and gripes go on. It's not hard to see why.
A seeming majority of Gen Alpha kids are born into hyper-stimulating environments, ready access to addictive technology, and being fluent in iPad use before they are forming coherent sentences. It's like the adage of "don't sit too close to the TV or it'll hurt your eyes", except now it's huffing gasoline.
Kids are getting fucked over in a big way. I had a conversation with my mother-in-law who's sister is a teacher and relayed the message from the sister that essentially more affluent districts have more well-behaved kids. To the shock of nobody, kids who grow up in secure environments where at least one guardian is consistently there are growing up more well-behaved (god help you if you mention the numbers 6 and 7 in succession, though).
It shouldn't be a shock to you that metrics of intelligence usually rank higher amongst richer families, that's because they can actually afford the quality education necessary.
Regardless, I am around a lot of early Gen Alpha kids by proxy of my wife having a lot of younger cousins. The interactions are... interesting sometimes.
For example, while I've seen articles floating around about how studies are showing higher levels of technological literacy in Gen Alpha, I gotta call bullshit on that. If by "technological literacy" you mean "basic computer and smart device navigation that even older Xoomers have figured out", then yeah it makes sense. However when it comes to practically anything else, Alpha kids are not great with technology that isn't designed like a Fisher-Price toy. Basic trouble shooting is out the window it seems (this is also a problem of late Zoomers too), and even just messing with settings is foreign to them. I know it's a rather small sample size, but the Gen Alpha kids I know would be lost if you told them to change the background wallpaper on their computer (smartphones and tablets are a no brainer though).
One of the older cousins doesn't even know what a USB is... look, I'm probably gonna sound like an old man here, but how tf do you not know what a USB is? It's not like a floppy drive where it's been outdated for decades at this point, USBs are still very much a current technology.
Again, I'm aware of this small sample size, but the anecdotes seem to be piling up.
Gen Alpha isn't to blame here. It's the people behind the phones recording them having a meltdown because they took the kid's iPad away and posting it online for others to make a spectacle out of that are the problem.
These dolts who evidently haven't taken a breath through their nose a day in their life know that there's a problem, but do fuck all to resolve it. It's the same kinda people who see someone having a seizure in public and their first instinct is to whip out their phones.
That being said, I understand FULLY how tempting it is to just let a kid go wild on a TV or something because you're mentally dead and exhausted from the never-ending demand of neo-liberal capitalism. My wife and I are guilty of this too, we let our daughter watch Wiggles on the TV.
However, I do think there is a STARK contrast between a curated show from the 90s-00s and a show like Cocomelon that is designed to be like heroin for babies. I walked in on my MIL and daughter watching Cocomelon together one time, and it was jarring seeing how, for one, low effort the animation and songs are, and two, how stimulating this show is, between the incredibly saturated colors to the jump cuts every second. What I learned was that this show uses focus groups of children to make it so there is not a break in the concentration. If a kid shifts his eyes away from the screen, the scene gets edited to address that.
Companies are literally designing everything for addiction these days. Trying to get you hooked on whatever they can profit off of as early in your development as possible.
There are also parents, like another one of my wife's aunts, who is completely incompetent at raising her kids. Both kids have severe speech impediments one kinda talks with a slurred speech and the other is borderline incomprehensible. The latter is in middle school and can barely articulate their words. It's really sad. A lot of members of the family basically tell her to get her kids into speech therapy, but she won't because it "overwhelms her"... how about put your fucking big girl pants on, get the fuck over yourself, and be a fucking MOTHER you quarter-wit. The older sister recently crashed her step-dad's truck trying to pick up her boyfriend and is likely going to face getting barred from having a license until she's 18. The rest of the family is basically telling the aunt "you have nobody to blame but yourself". If you think the aunt is negligent, their bio-dad is even worse. It just kinda reminds me of the book Careless People, and reminds me of the dad who slowed down, whilst driving their actively bleeding-out daughter to the hospital, to look out for the fish in a river. I digress, this wasn't meant to be a takedown of my gripes with my wife's aunt, just kinda had to get that out.
All this being said, I do have some hope though for Gen Alpha...
A growing number of parents ARE becoming aware of how fucked technology has become for kids. One of my wife's aunt and uncle approached me for advice on dumb phones because they know I use it and want to have their kids use a dumb phone to reduce screen time.
I do see kids hanging out outside with their friends, playing sports, etc.
During Halloween 2025, I saw that kids are still out there. They're playing, making friends, trick-or-treating isn't dead even among some of the younger teenagers. It gave me a hopeful feeling that maybe we can do something about this. Maybe Gen Alpha isn't screwed.
I think the shift is going to come from these older generations who recognize the damage of social media and even how technology is designed these days and try to reverse course. I see this shift in Zoomer's who are becoming parents. A lot of them seem to share the same sentiment as me when it comes to technology.
I think setting age-appropriate boundaries with technology is the right way to go. Limiting screen time, curating the entertainment so it's not just an algorithm determining what our kids watch, hell just BEING present with your kid is like 99% of the battle.
I understand that can be difficult, especially if you and your spouse work full time jobs (or multiple jobs), but we owe it to our kids to try. It won't be easy, hell parenting is probably one of the hardest things I've had to do, and I'm not even the primary parent, but we put our kids into this world, we do them a disservice doing anything less than giving them the best chance at succeeding in this world.
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I'm bored as hell at work. I came in early enough and there's barely anyone here, and I just wanna go home to my wife and daughter who are both sick now. They were up since 3:30am. Thankfully, the perk of living with my MIL is she came down to help my wife get a little rest and watch our daughter. I fucking hate this place and the obtuse boomers in charge who ushered in the RTO mandate. They know people are pissed, but they're hoping it goes away. I hope it doesn't. Just gotta get through this shit until I either graduate from my Clinical Social Worker program, or there is an opportunity that comes around that is too good to pass up.