(Too: Closing browser tabs the night left open. Unsure which random insights led into the murky world of old Unix derivatives and same as old VAX machines. The model doesn't know either. Maybe that odd nostalgia about technology being both advanced and still archaic, that roots in yesterday while increasingly overwhelmed by the new walls of todays tools and toys.)
Plötzlicher Kontextwechsel. Verbindungen herstellen noch im Heute zu dem, was erst Morgen wieder von Relevanz sein sollte. Sich an Zugangsdaten erinnern. Routen nachzuvollziehen versuchen. An unerwarteten Wänden scheitern. Und neue Prioritäten setzen, weil es der Augenblick erfordert.
Also: Learning about that system you dedicated years of your life building will finally be shut down and discontinued within a six weeks time frame, no replacement. And remembering all that tremendous load of prototype quality code in there that went online once "just to see" - to then remain there for more than a dozen years without getting maintenance or improvements and it way less leaves a good feeling relating to ones own earlier works but a rather bad gut feeling eyeing virtually every piece of software out and running online at present.
(Topologies and hierarchies. Tracing where the actual design differs from the drafted one. Calling out into obscure depths, wondering who is likely to respond and whether this is what's expected. Small differences in data amounting to quite disturbing effects if just piling up for long enough. Map's not the territory. The system does what it does, and it's unsure to even fully grasp whether this is what it should be doing.)
4pm and a bit further. Research, try, repeat. Steps forth, steps back. But at least not running in circles. The lower a level of technology, the more unfamiliar, uncanny all surroundings feel. And the more dusty, rusted everything to come across seems to be. At the very end, maybe there's still an engineer in everything technical, and it always boils down to descending into an engine room to fix crucial problems. Steampunk moods under a chilling wind.