September 2019

Media today:

• Octopus Dreaming: watch an octopus change color as it sleeps.
• Wang Huning: Xi Jinping's Reluctant Propagandist
• 陈丹青：文学与读书 ("Danqing Chen: Literature and Reading")
• Articles from the blog Scholar's Stage:
  • Public Opinion in Authoritarian States
  • Reflections on China's Stalinist Heritage, Part 1
  • China Does Not Want Your Rules-Based Order
  • Xi Jinping Explains His Political Philosophy
  • Whence Springs a Strategic Canon?
  • What to Read to Get Into Chinese History

Media today:

• 【吃货请闭眼】北京超火爆的大虾火锅？大锅40只虾只要128元，2个人吃到撑
• What You Think You Know About Recycling is Probably Totally Wrong by Robert Wiblin, Director of Research at 80,000 Hours.
• Bird respiratory structure

This instructional video from 1953 explains the basic mechanisms that combine to form contemporary mechanical computers (in this case, naval firing computers.) The narration and examples are clear and accessible to the mechanical novice, who should start at the beginning. If you already know about cams and differentials, watch the first few minutes to see the footage of men operating the computers, then skip to the second half.

When I first created the blog index, there were about ten posts already, so I just copied their URLs into the page. Today, faced with the prospect of having to continue to make manual updates to the index, I wrote a Python script which reads the list of posts, and builds the index page for me. I then integrated this script into the overall build script for the website.

Incremental improvement is all one can do!

Reading today:

• the Montgolfier brothers invented the world's first hot-air balloon.

  Since the animals [from the previous test on 1783-09-19] survived, the king allowed flights with humans. Again in collaboration with Réveillon, Étienne built a 60,000-cubic-foot (1,700 m3) balloon [...] It was about 23 m (75 feet) tall and about 15 m (50 feet) in diameter. Réveillon supplied rich decorative touches of gold figures on a deep blue background, including fleur-de-lis, signs of the zodiac, and suns with Louis XVI's face in the center interlaced with the royal monogram in the central section. Red and blue drapery and golden eagles were at the base of the balloon.

  Wikipedia

It's been a frustrating day. My beloved Kinesis Advantage keyboard, that stalwart defender against repetitive strain injury, has developed an intermittent problem where it completely fails to function.

I've managed to do some computer work today anyway, but I had to use the horrifically non-ergonomic keyboard of my Macbook Pro 2012, which causes me wrist pain after an hour or two of use. It also has the tiny little problem of a nearly-dead "e" key. The most common letter in the English language is currently unavailable to me unless I press hard, in a manner most non-ergonomic for my left middle finger. And, every time I stab the "e" key and it doesn't fire, I get a little more frustrated, a little more ticked off at my equipment, and a little less able to take things easy and get work done.

After my last D&D game folded, in June of 2018, I felt like I didn't want anything to do with D&D for a while. Only after another year or so did I resume reading and commenting in the blogosphere, and only now am I thinking about next steps for serious work on my game.

The month after the game folded, I wrote a brief post-mortem analysis for the five or six sessions of the 2018 game. Here is a rewritten and distilled version: the key points as I see them today, with the benefit of longer hindsight.

The creator describes Preta as the ancient revenant of a dead Jedi, who feeds off fallen Sith and Jedi to increase his power.

The English language can be hard, and it changes from place to place. Here are some important Californian phrases to help you fit in.

• "sup" -- hello; how are you?
• "chill" -- good; cool
• "dank" -- very good; very cool
• "bruh" -- I am pleasantly surprised
• "bro" / "brah" -- friend; brother
• "brooo" -- good idea
• "bro!" -- what are you doing?
• "fosho" / "aight" -- yes, sure, no problem
• "mad" / "hella" -- very; lots
• "gnarly" -- excellent; terrible
• "faded" -- high on marijuana
• "gnar" -- something cool
• "shred" -- what you do to a gnar

Most importantly, if you ever forget what to say, the word "dude" can mean anything and is always acceptable.

Only once have I used a grocery-delivery service. I picked out my items, and the following evening a young delivery man came with my order.

The receipt that the delivery man left with me had been printed by the same process used for the receipts of in-store cash registers. The layout and formatting were identical.

However, in the space where a cash register's receipt would have read, "Today, your cashier was So-and-so," this receipt instead said:

"Today, your cashier was Virtual."

Obliti is a conjugated form of the Latin participle "forgotten."

A final draft may one day arrive!

I've added a section to the Sith Lord Challenge which discusses the different hats I've been wearing as the facilitator.

This entry's creator reminds would-be foes that Darth Pthaaargh's beefy arms can be used for punching and strangling.

The Sith Lord Challenge is coming along fabulously. We are up to 18 entries!

Recipient of My Aunt's Seal of Approval.

His ability to drink all the beer before you arrive is the ultimate evil.

This Sith Lord's creator notes that Kraetertorius has an S rank in every stat.