Black and pink (blackpink?)

am glad to say that we have 20 fish right now and they are all healthy and seemingly happy. They get plenty of human attention. They’re not being neglected, abandoned, or malnourished (except when nasty men engage in lawfare).

Aside from the loaches and penguin tetras we not have some pearl danios in the cold tank and many flame tetras in the warm tank along with cardinal tetras as seen in this photo:

Almost the entire time (that is observable by me) they do characteristically move in schools, always together or nearby, unlike some other fish we’ve had. The fish in the cold tank are very close to me as it is 5 inches from my keyboard and below the screen that I type articles on. The hundreds of shells are doing well, but they are slow-moving. They don’t steal attention.

I’ve joked with a friend that I should write a script to generate passwords from their movements, no lava lamps necessary.

I’ve noticed the danios love swimming against the current that’s coming out from the filters and they always move quite tightly in groups, which means they’re a very social fish and they will grow a LOT more over time. We’ve calculated their projected final size to ensure the tanks won’t get too congested, overcrowding would make grumpy fish.

Just in time for our anniversary.

Coping better

T is day one for the new arrangement of the shells here and so far they seem to be doing OK. They were getting a shocking rinse yesterday, so they went into their shells and now, slowly, they are coming back out and moving around on the surface. Soon we’ll add the filter and some decorative items.

The change was months overdue.

Snails/shells

vening time today was spent transferring all the shells (I estimate over 200 of them) to a bigger tank and setting it all up. As far as I can tell, all should be able to survive the transfer and I didn’t see any dead one.

They might need companions soon – a task for the coming week or maybe only a few days.

Death came

ur next-door neighbour died this weekend. She was almost 80. We didn’t get along (almost nobody got along with her, both past and present), but at times like these we must all be human beings and compassionate towards grieving relatives. This was not shocking or surprising because this past year the ambulance came here a lot and there was gradual deterioration, often very loud screaming and doors being slammed.

My thoughts about this situation are very complicated. I don’t believe people suddenly become saints or impermissible to criticise because they die. But common sense or popular sayings urge us to keep quiet if we have nothing positive to say.

Rianne will pray for her. We hope her husband can cope.

Facepalm

think I’ve already said enough about why Evri is Evil and deserves a boycott. It uses bots, those bots make mistakes and then it responds with more bots. They also use chatbots to insult customers and it smells like a scam whether they mean to or not.

Today they sent another message and it seems like a template, but this time (unlike before) there is a real name on that generic message. As before, they respond to an incident that does not exist or make wrong guesses about what this incident is about. It’s not about a lost parcel. It was never about that. Any person who can comprehend basic English would know that. Here is the message sent:

Support Incident Update

Response By E-mail (Siliziwe Msengana) (07/09/2026 08.18 AM)

Dear Roy Schestowitz,

Thanks for getting in touch with us about parcel number C00HHA0641395122

We’re so sorry your recipient hasn’t been able to locate their parcel. We appreciate that this is not the outcome you were hoping for, however, we do offer cover to assist in this situation and we will happily support you through the process of making a claim.

As your parcel has received a final delivery scan, a signed Denial of Receipt letter is required. Please use our standard Denial of Receipt letter, which can be downloaded when filling in your claim form, to send to your recipient. Ask your recipient to complete and sign this letter and return this, to you, to attach to the claim. If a scanner is not available, you may take a picture of the letter and attach it before submitting the claim.

Please note: we can only accept physical or electronic signatures (not typed).

During our claims process, if your parcel is located, we will endeavour to deliver this to your recipient as quickly as possible.

Should you wish to submit your claim, please complete the following online form:

Lost Claim Form

We thank you for your time and patience on this matter and ask that you provide the required information within 14 days, so we can resolve this as quickly as possible for you. We aim to process all claims within 28 working days of receipt.

Non-Compensated & Prohibited Items

As a self-serve company, we do everything possible to encourage customers to check our lists of non-compensated and prohibited items and we try to make this easy and transparent so that customers understand from the outset what we can and can’t carry. Certain items such as liquids are on the prohibited list because they are more likely to become damaged than others and therefore require a specialist carrier.

Please note: should you choose to issue a refund before this claim is finalised then you must do so at your own risk. If the parcel is located it will be delivered to the intended recipient and the claim will be closed.

Kind regards,

Siliziwe

Evri Customer Services

They are clearly not actually reading what I sent them, so what’s the pointing writing any more to them?

I’ve decided that, instead, my time is better spent explaining to other customers (or potential customers) what Evri became.

“The researchers were particularly interested in three psychological needs identified by self-determination theory: relatedness, or having meaningful relationships; competence, or feeling capable and effective; and autonomy, meaning that our actions feel voluntarily chosen rather than forced on us.” -“Not Money or Pleasure: Scientists Say They’ve Found The True Key to Happiness” (5 September 2026)

n capitalism, people are meant to conflate accumulation of capital (or material assets) with “success” and that sort of success is interchangeable with happiness. But this is a gross oversimplification as pursuit of capital is not in its own right joyful or pleasant. Many people derive pleasure from social things because they are, after all, “social animals”.

Those who seek improvement in their lives by working hard to gain more money may find that it’s easier for them to purchase more things or better things. But at what cost?

Also, more personal belongings can one day became liabilities or burdens. This is why many people, especially late in their lives, give things away and move into smaller, simpler places/spaces.

What evolution?

isabilities come in many forms (or shapes) and as far as I’m aware I have nothing that counts as a disability or even allergy (like many other people, there are limits to how much lactose I can tolerate and this is apparently hereditary, it’s rather benign).

To Rianne and I it seems like more people born in recent years (if not decades) there are some mental and/or physical impairment. We don’t attribute that to pollution (air, water, food/diet); some blame late pregnancies (a century ago women chose to bear children at a much younger age). Apparently this is a common sentiment and people I speak to can’t help but notice the same. There are also studies about it.

If you look for a high-profile study on growth in that regard (children with impairment), then you will find many despite the political incorrectness. About the general trend: “In this study, we investigated the evolving epidemiology of six developmental disabilities (epilepsy, hearing loss, intellectual disability, vision loss, autism spectrum disorder [ASD], and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]) among children and adolescents aged 0–19?years from 1990 to 2021, focusing on prevalence and burden. The average annual percentage change (AAPC) was calculated, and trends were disaggregated by age, sex, and the socio-demographic Index (SDI).”

A more recent study looked at “Childhood mental, behavioral, and developmental disorders (MBDD)” and found: “From 2016 through 2021, MBDD prevalence among children aged 3 to 17 years increased from 25.3% to 27.7%; increases were specific to anxiety, depression, learning disability, developmental delay, and speech or language disorder. Unmet health care needs increased annually by an average of approximately 5% among children with MBDDs. Each year from 2016 to 2021, approximately 60% of children with MBDDs received mental or developmental services in the past 12 months. Each year, a higher percentage of parents of children with MBDDs compared with children without MBDDs reported poor mental health (14.7% MBDD, 5.7% no MBDD) and economic stress (21.6% MBDD, 11.5% no MBDD).”

The EPO treats children with special needs as a high priority as we assume many EPO workers have children that are “imperfect”.