2015 September❮❮prevnext❯❯

I built the website for our class final and it was not easy. But it also wasn't scary. It just took a lot of patience, reloading, and Googling. Unlike math, there was no mythic and absolute answer that I was missing; I could do it my own way as long as I followed some basic rules. And unlike learning a new language, I didn't have to stare into someone's face and watch her cringe when I mangled a new phrase. My ugly textedit coding document was a judgment-free zone.

I kind of hate Google's new logo (looks too much like a kid's toy) but I think I prefer the "Capital G of many colors" mini-version...

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That's a "closeup" of the last 5 years or so of my weight monitoring. (It avoids the tragedy/triumph of my mid- and late-aughts foray into 220 land, but the data is a lot cleaner) An annual pattern has emerged! Spring and summer, I tend to put on some pounds (this year some of my easiest dieting times happened during the blizzards, living on microwave popcorn and canned soup actually ain't so bad.)

I've been thinking about my inner-eater; the part of me that apparently wants me to bulk up in case there's a famine or something, or just likes to eat tasty things. He's gotten *really* devious: my favorite bit is where I consciously figure out "so, I'm not really hungry, and there's not even anything super tasty temping me, so I'm ok with not eating now" and he comes up with "Aha! Right! So now is a good time to enjoy the pleasure of eating because you don't really need/want it!!!" -- the rest of me totally falls for that sometimes.

Radiolab had a bit about ways we can motivate ourselves; in particular, how to wrestle the immediate-gratification parts of ourselves. The examples given was the socially-consciously lady who quit smoking by vowing that if she had another cigarette she'd donate $5,000 to the KKK, and that disgust caused her to recoil from the cigs. In an even more extreme case Oliver Sacks gave himself ten days to write the book he was stalled on or kill himself. (!!!)

The point of those were that you might need something really visceral to counteract the promise of pleasure in the moment. To quote the "Procrastination" demotivators -- "Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now." Life is so uncertain, that sometimes I think our tendency to overvalue immediate payout is not as irrational as we assume!

But still, I'm convinced I'm more content at a lower weight, ideally around 180. Unlike smoking, folks gotta eat to SOME level, so it's not like I can say, I Don't Eat or I Give $1,000 to the NRA. I'm thinking maybe I can bribe myself? Like if I hit 185 (which is where I'd need to be to stay below 190) I can get that cheap Windows laptop I've been thinking of, or maybe some exhilarating experience like skydiving or bungee.

Come to think of it Liz does dietbets, which is along the same idea of the KKK donation wager -- lose X% of your body weight by a certain time or lose money. I guess I'm blessed with enough financial cushion, or feel that enough factors go into weight loss (especially against a deadline) that I don't want to go that route- it doesn't feel quite visceral enough, I think.

Wow, this got longer than I planned. Guess I'm still an old blogger at heart.

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I love logos and mascots The month started with a lot of band: helping shutter the JP Library for renovations and then the Hatch... a big swing underdog on the 9th, trombone shorty on the 13th, and ends on a holiday note.

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On the difficulty - but continuing importance also - of peer reviewed science... includes a great p-value fiddler interactive widget.

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Cora Vs The Rooster... 5 and 4 star:

• My Favorite Picture of You (Guy Clark) The studio version of this made my 5-star list. It feels so true; the picture he's showing on the album cover must be the one in the song. When he says "click" it gives me a shiver; such love, such remorse.
• Wild World (Cassandra Jenkins) A LOVELY cover of Cat Stevens' song.
• The Time Is Now (John Cena & Tha Trademarc) There's a new version of Rick Rolling that uses this, Cena's entrance music. It's a super energizing song.

And the rest...

• Tusk (Fleetwood Mac) I kind of like this song, and the use of Marching Bands, but wish the sound balance was more in favor of the band...
• Barley & Grape Rag (Rory Gallagher) A prodigous 13 year old was playing this at Rockport's Acoustic Musical Fest... nice little bluegrass-y number
• Sail (AWOLNATION) I missed this one when it was fresh. I've seen it on cat videos since...
• X Gon' Give It to Ya (DMX) Maybe I saw this on a trailer? I like his powerful angry delivery.
• Shoop (Salt-n-Pepa) I really dig Salt-n-Pepa's uninhibited and uncompromising enthusiasm about sex on their terms. (Could do without the songs use of 'retard'; interesting that that word gets censored in the video.)
• Can't Let Go (Lucinda Williams) Heard a cover of this at Bryan's birthday party, another nice bluegrass-y number
• The Peoples' Champ (feat. Hellnback) (A Tribe Called Red) I dig the mix of hip hop and first people's music, along with the activist sentiment
• Encyclopedia Frown (Jonathan Mann) Anna Anthropy's cat in exciting pirate adventures! Fun video... also a version with more people singing than the one I have. Actually, I may have to replace the guy-and-guitar version I have with this one.
• Music From the "Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation" Movie Trailer (The Action Band) A remake of the actual progression of music from the trailer. (I'm still looking for awesome remixes of the original theme... I remember trying to march to it at Tufts Marching Band... we take the field once a year, so that year we pick the song that goes 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2??)
• Cheeseburger in Paradise (Jimmy Buffett) I remember Mo requesting this song in Florida. And more recently Melissa didn't realize it was an actual song, she thought that the title was just like a metaphor.
• New York (Angel Haze) Angel Haze is kind of harsh, but I like the sound of it.

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No one's being jailed for practicing her religion. Someone's being jailed for using the government to force others to practice her religion.

See also: @NextToKimDavis... Davis is either terribly misguided or just trying to ride the Loony Conservative Gravy Train. Even though it wasn't one of my top favorites, the Atari 2600 game "Riddle of the Sphinx" has been in my dreams a bit lately...

this screenshot from the animated screenshot tumblr http://pixelclash.tumblr.com/
via recreational programming and the geekiest of nostalgia and the making of:

This past spring I had an online dialog with Chris Federico, keeper of Orphaned Computers & Game Systems and author of The Classic-Gaming Bookcast - $0.99 well spent for any fan of old games.

One way he adds to his enjoyment of games is to make up his own backstory for them - for a great example of this kind of thing, see his co-author's Adam Trionfo's "Before Reading the Manual" on their review of the obscure Spectravision game "Gas Hog". At one point in our conversation I explained my own reasons for why that seemed kind of alien to me. Recently he mentioned some of my ideas had stuck with him and he asked if I would explicate, possibly for partial inclusion in a future edition of his "Bookcast"... this is what I came up with.


There are two ways to think about the story behind specific retro videogames... for some players, the pixels and bleeps and blurps of an older game are like the shadows in Plato's Cave, technology used to crudely reveal a bigger, "more real" story going on. (The manual might give one explanation of the reality thus represented, but there's nothing stopping players from constructing their own, as you've demonstrated in your bookcast...) The screen for Intellivision's "AD&D: Cloudy Mountain" may just be showing some green and yellow squares (like a kid might have made with graph paper and some markers) but this type of player can see the slime-covered stonework, hear the echo from some unseen dripping water, smell the smoke of the flickering torches lining the walls in their metal holders. And these players' experience is probably the richer for it.

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A damn stylus, thanks Apple! To quote Gruber: "Finally" For-Profit Prisons are the worst. Thanks, "Everything is Better Privatized!" A__holes!

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Deadspin's "Why Your Team Sucks" has been a fun read all along and reaches its pinacle with the Patriots.

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So I'm dieting, and it's board game night, with four delicious pizzas ordered in. The solution: I allow myself one slice, and then say I will give twenty bucks to each of three other guys there if I have a second.

Atwater ordered food. The waiter said: 'That dish takes twenty- five minutes.' Atwater said: 'I have my life before me.' The waiter went away, shaking his head.

'Americans always have such a lot of misdirected party spirit,' said Gosling. 'One came to a party I gave two years ago and drank so much that he died soon after.'

He laughed and lay in her arms, kissing her. The universe seemed notably absent.

Being a novice is safe. When you are learning how to do something, you do not have to worry about whether or not you are good at it. But when you have done something, have learned how to do it, you are not safe any more. Being an expert opens you up to judgement.

Hunting in Maine is not obviously riven with centuries of class and privilege. There are no vast pheasant shoots here where bankers vie for the largest bags, no elite grouse moors or exclusive salmon rivers. All the land can be hunted over by virtue of common law, and locals are very proud of this egalitarian tradition. Years ago I read an article in a 1942 edition of Outdoor Life that stirred wartime sentiment by appealing to it. 'One of my grandfathers came from northern Europe for the single reason that he wanted to live in a country where he could try to catch a fish without sneaking onto some nobleman's property where the common people were excluded.'

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Jimminy F'in Crickets; somehow my (autoreloading) Dunkies card has been used for $465.29 of NY/NJ charges since 8/23.

I've been seeing more crap like this lately; I cancelled my old number because of mysterio Uber charges.

It's why I only keep one card, and try to watch it like a hawk. This space left semi-intentionally blank

September Blender of Love

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switcheroo The Best Key & Peele Sketches, as Chosen by 39 Comedians and Comic Actors a lot of stuff I hadn't seen... I still think my favorite might be one of the first I saw, Dubstep

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Buzzfeed:I Asked Atheists How They Find Meaning In A Purposeless Universe Arun​ pointed me to this. It begs the question that the Universe is purposeless, the assumption that purpose must come from outside the "system"; one of the things I'm being reminded of in reading "Redefining the Sacred" (to lead a discussion on it for my UU Science & Spirituality group) is that purpose can be an emergent property, one that swells up from all the less purposeful bits. For the Medal of Honor stuff (I think), they brought a helicopter right next to where I work, between the WTC and the Convention center... but a tough time getting it past lamposts once it has landed.

There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

Had my first quick lesson with manual transmission thanks to Llara.

I learned: A. I am not a magical prodigy at this, despite understanding most of the theory. B. Clutches have more "give" than I was expecting, I was thinking of them as an "on/off" kind of thing, but the is it/isn't it question makes the seessaw trick a bit tougher.

So I'm at that stage where I understand how tough it can be but caught a glimpse on how nice it must be once you're used to it- but for now I SO appreciate my humble car's automatic

Stick is so European, by which I mean: you can't do this and drive and eat a cheeseburger, that's damn near Un-American!
--via Liz One woman gets through a midlife crisis by hunting down a link between Hume and Buddhism. It's a cool story, but I also get a sense of "aww, I guess a separate re-invention of the idea of self-as-illusion was too much to hope for". Suddenly, the word "symbols" is the oddest English word I've ever seen in my life.

To him, all good things--trout as well as eternal salvation--come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.

For some time, though, he struggled for more to hold on to. "Are you sure you have told me everything you know about his death?" he asked. I said, "Everything." "It's not much, is it?" "No," I replied, "but you can love completely without complete understanding." "That I have known and preached," my father said.

A few weeks ago, there was a lot of talk about the leading "So". I'm kind of annoyed I'm getting self-conscious about using it, since it's an excellent "softener" and frame. Coming out with unadorned statements of fact feels rough.

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Big E, Big E, Can't you see, somehow fried martini petrifies me. Yesterday Melissa, Liz, and I went to "The Big E".

I took a lot of footage for potential use as "One Second Everyday", then made a compilation of it...


Food Consumed (7 hours, 3 people):
Some of these were large amounts, some were just bits and pieces...
steak sandwich
Corn dog
Cream puff
Maple candy
Maple Cotton candy
housemade spiral chips with chili & cheese
Cider donut
Milk shake
Funnel cake well sugared
Diet coke
Pork and beans parfait
Corn On Cob with Sriracha
Fried (!) Martini
Kettle popcorn

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Eclipse happening now! I love things that remind me of the clockwork mechanism of the solar system-- it took me decades to notice that, when you can see the partial moon (in particular in the day time) it's kind of like a rounded arrow head pointing towards the sun....

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I just realized... for a while I've known that maybe one reason I don't like "white text on black" is my (mildish) astigmatism... it makes it hard to focus, because of how the iris has to open up. And that same reasoning might explain why I the detail of the moon seems particularly hard to make out at night. Reminds me of how one of the reasons I'll dread giving up my 2004 Scion when it comes time is that it's such a great steering wheel percussion instrument... great bass thump, nice snare, and a good percussive scratch along the side. Ah, the New American Exceptionalism. Every developed nation has its conservatives, only ours deny climate science.

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http://gazettegalore.blogspot.com/ - My COMPUTE!'s Gazette blog finally got to my all time favorite, Crossroads! Definitely worth checking out for any fan of games on the system

(To celebrate I'm going to start providing direct disk images for the games I call 4 or 5 star...)

2015 September❮❮prevnext❯❯