On TV, petty criminals get burner phones and they're using them ten seconds later.

In real life, I bought a burner phone today and spent 90 minutes trying to get it set up and failed.

First there's this tremendous circular yak shave because the phone isn't a phone yet when you take it out of the box -- it doesn't have a phone number assigned. But you need to register with the weirdass carrier it's locked to. So you go to make an account with the carrier, and that requires an email address. But all the free email address providers want you to give a phone number. (Protonmail says it doesn't... but haha, it won't let you verify any account creation unless you do.)

I eventually sliced through that knot. It took over an hour, but I did finally have a working phone that had a phone number and some amount of prepaid minutes and data good for 30 days, all without using my real email or phone number anywhere in the process. Victory!

Except no: because the whole point of this was to install Chinese spyware on the burner phone, and it turned out that the app I wanted to install (WeChat) says it's incompatible with my device (but refuses to say what the incompatibility is). Some people on the internet say that it's because this particular crappy burner phone is running a 32-bit build of Android despite the hardware being 64-bit?!? I'm not sure that's true, there's conflicting evidence.

Yes, I could now attempt to install the APK manually and watch the errors go by, but all the yaks in my immediate vicinity are already cleanshaven and so I will abandon this misadventure and go to bed instead.

The upside is that now I have a working burner phone and it doesn't even have Chinese spyware on it, so I could do some crimes with it I guess?

This is sort of a funny place to start with superstimul.us, but I'll just copy-paste a life update I shared in my main channel on discord. It's a little in media res but that seems fine?

Work. As I think everyone has heard by now, I resigned from my job as communications manager at MIRI a little over a month ago, though I'll stay in the role until the end of the year. My decision to leave was abrupt from the perspective of most of my co-workers, though it felt inevitable to both me and Eliezer. What I was doing there wasn't working and it was breaking me in the process.

While it caused a bit of an uproar at the time, MIRI seems to be adjusting. Others have stepped up. There's strategizing and reconfiguration happening. Nature is healing.

And as of today, we figured out a new role for me at MIRI for next year. It's a much smaller and more sustainable role, with lower pay and shorter hours, and I feel great about it.

Kids. I get a huge dose of holiday parenting in even-numbered years. I adore my kids more all the time, but the next month is going to be exhausting and maddening in a lot of ways.

Think of me especially from December 20th until January 5th, when I'll be mostly-soloing the kids for 16 days straight, with some grandparental support for part of the time. I would love it if you initiated online chats with me during that time, or just sent me memes or pictures of whatever you're up to. I don't get a lot of time to sit down and do my favorite focused activities when I'm with the kids, but talking to friends online interleaves pretty nicely with a lot of parenting and helps me feel less alone and a bit more sane.

Partners. Things are very good in the relationship department. Eliezer and I are both very happy that I've taken a step back at work. I'm also hoping to travel to see my other partners at a slightly increased frequency in 2025 now that I'm not stretched so thin.

Health. The thyroid ablation totally worked! Everything went exactly as planned and hyperthyroidism is now completely in the past. They did overshoot a little (which was also the plan) so now I'm permanently hypothyroid and treating it with levothyroxine, and this too seems to be working.

I did gain some unwanted weight when my metabolism tanked. This was entirely predictable and still unpleasant. On the other hand, now I have a lot more energy and don't feel like crap all the time, so I actually feel like being much more active. I've joined a no-frills geezer gym near my house and I'm quickly becoming a regular there. With some effort I think I can attain Maximum Hotness in the coming months, especially if you compare me mainly to the geezers.

Fun. For fun these days I'm playing factorio, doing cross stitch, reading, and flirting, not necessarily in that order, and I'm daydreaming a lot about the projects I want to work on next year. I can't wait for January 6th!