2025 December❮❮prev

Years ago I had an annual tradition of making "Virtual Advent Calendars" - little toys and games that could run in the browser, one each day for Dec 1-25.

I was heartened to find out that the first years' (which I thought were lost because Java Applets are now deprecated) can be run if you use a Chrome plugin called CheerpJ.

Anyway, here are links to all 7:
2009 (Java Applet)
2011 (Java Applet)
2012 (Started remaking in JS)
2013 (Seasons)
Ed Emberly Animals (plus Santa)
2015 (Games)
2016 (Finale)

Sometimes I miss making these things! It was a fun little tradition, and nice creative outlet.

---

And there are a lot of lessons you could take from that about the nature of getting immersed in a piece of art [by spending 21 hours livestreaming to live a mundane working class week in Cyberpunk 2077]. But for me, I think my main takeaway is something I've always said on this channel. *If you want to get more out of something, put more into something.* This goes for games. It goes for movies and other forms of art. But it also goes for your relationships, your health, and your life overall.

If it surprises you, it's information. If it confirms your bias, it's entertainment. If it makes you hate your neighbor, it's a weapon.

Life is mostly maintenance.
Irrational beliefs come from insisting maintenance should feel like achievement.

It's been a while for me but did anyone else read Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer"? Lately I've been thinking of the parallels between the titular Primer and the experience of frequently consulting with ChatGPT via smartphone. (and it's ability to take what it knows about you into account with its answers) 4 star:
* i don't always miss you (Dan Reeder)
* The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot)

3 star:
* Brickyard Blues (Play Something Sweet) (Rita Coolidge)
* Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (2011) (Amy Winehouse)
* Kenji (Fort Minor)
* Itchy Scratchy (Subtronics)

"you're the best thing that's ever happened to me"
"i don't think so much in superlatives but you're right up there"

---

get smarter about the ways money actually warps our politics - it's not about buying votes, it's about buying the process. This concept from Greg Egan's Permutation City (great scifi book, cheap now - best thoughtful study on some of the implications of uploaded selves) has long stuck with me:

[Discussing "The Church of the God Who Makes No Difference"]:

She said, "'God makes no difference ... because God is the reason why everything is exactly what it is'? That's supposed to make us all feel at peace with the cosmos, is it?"

Francesca shook her head. "At peace? No. It's just a matter of clearing away, once and for all, old ideas like divine intervention – and the need for some kind of proof, or even faith, in order to believe."

Maria said, "What *do* you need, then? *I* don't believe, so what am I missing?"

"Belief?"

"And a love of tautology."

"Don't knock tautology. Better to base a religion on tautology than fantasy."

"But it's worse than tautology. It's ... redefining words arbitrarily, it's like something out of Lewis Carroll. Or George Orwell. 'God is the reason for everything ... whatever that reason is.' So what any sane person would simply call *the laws of physics*, you've decided to rename G-O-D ... solely because the word carries all kinds of historical resonances – all kinds of misleading connotations. You claim to have nothing to do with the old religions – so why keep using their terminology?"

Francesca said, "We don't deny the history of the word. We make a break from the past in a lot of ways – but we also acknowledge our origins. God is a concept people have been using for millennia. The fact that we've refined the idea beyond primitive superstitions and wish-fulfillment doesn't mean we're not part of the same tradition."

"But you haven't *refined* the idea, you've made it meaningless! And rightly so – but you don't seem to realize it. You've stripped away all the obvious stupidities – all the anthropomorphism, the miracles, the answered prayers – but you don't seem to have noticed that once you've done that, there's absolutely nothing left that needs to be called *religion*. Physics is not theology. Ethics is *not* theology. Why pretend that they are?"

Francesca said, "But don't you see? We talk about God for the simple reason that *we still want to*. There's a deeply ingrained human compulsion to keep using that word, that concept – to keep honing it, rather than discarding it – despite the fact that it no longer means what it did five thousand years ago."

"And you know perfectly well where that compulsion comes from! It has nothing to do with any real divine being; it's just a product of culture and neurobiology – a few accidents of evolution and history."

"Of course it is. What human trait isn't?"

"So why give in to it?"

Francesca laughed. "Why give in to anything? The religious impulse isn't some kind of ... alien mind virus. It's not – in its purest form, stripped of all content – the product of brainwashing. It's a part of who I am."

Maria put her face in her hands. "Is it? When you talk like this, it doesn't sound like you."

Francesca said, "Don't you ever want to give thanks to God, when things are going well for you? Don't you ever want to ask God for strength, when you need it?"

"No."

"Well, I do. Even though I know God makes no difference. And if God is the reason for everything, then God includes the urge to use the word God. So whenever I gain some strength, or comfort, or meaning, from that urge, then God is the source of that strength, that comfort, that meaning.

"And if God – while making no difference – helps me to accept what's going to happen to me, why should that make you sad?"

Can't believe I never blogged about it before, because the church name and concept (sometimes I misremember it as "The God That Doesn't Matter") has really resonated for me, right up there with Vonnegut and Bokononism.

---

It's either made-up trans bullshit, or made-up immigration bullshit.
Either way, none of it affects my life. It's the economy stupid.

The party of "fuck your feelings" has so many fucking feelings.

---

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaha

---

vocal reads

---

I think of of my favorite lines in pop music is still "suckin' on my titties like you wanted me". It's just so damn jaded. (ever since i heard it the japanese strip club scene in Lost in Translation)

---

amusing to no one but me, the little pile of stuff i often move from downatairs up to bed - laptop, ipad mini reader, phone (and today two ipads... i'm using the large one to read a PDF scan book that would otherwise be hard to read on a smaller screen) - I always think "my tech stack" and get that little glint of amusement

---

---

ahahah say what you will about Times New Roman vs Cabrini, Trump labeling "The West Wing" "The Oval Office" with titles bearing the name... reminds me of how with alzheimer's patients sometimes they put big labels on things like a drawer labeled "pants" or "shirts"

---

---

2025 December❮❮prev