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Been a little behind in reading these days. A friend recommended "The Great Delusion" by John Mearsheimer. The basic idea is you got a balance a kind of liberalism (terms get fuzzy; he's talking like Clinton/Bush/Cheney "share our good values to the world" 'liberalism', something certain liberals would certainly condemn as a new flavor of colonialism) with nationalism and realism.

It mentioned Francis Fukuyama's famous article, "The End of History?" which I think a lot of us Gen Xers got introduced to via Jesus Jones' song "Right Here, Right Now"

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Trump and Musk are a revolution, alright, and no one will treat the USA as a reliable partner again. "And although one should hesitate before saying anything as pointed as describing president Trump and Vice-President as Russian assets, their conduct is indistinguishable from them being so."

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"They'll never cut Social Security" is the new "they'll never overturn Roe v Wade."

I was worried that dreaded "Oh you're about to turn fifty? Join AARP!" letter would be a psychological knock, but honestly it's more like #lifegoals.

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Your only goal in life is to create as much dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphin as possible.

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Two things: first, Matt Damon and other thoughts how the passing of DVDs has changed movies ...

Secondly... it's a good link but I only saw it because I'm weird about trying to "keep up" with the people on tumblr I follow. Like I tend to avoid the "endless streams" of Tik Tok, instagram, FB, because I like the sense of being caught up and not missing out. And in fact I think curating stuff online for others (and my future self) is a really good and rewarding activity for me. But I gotta worry about my anxiety about being caught up, and also the overall amount of time it takes.

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Excerpt from a letter from Gordon S, circa 1993

Went with Melissa and her mom to the Van Gogh IMAGINE projector show, then later stopped by where Leah and her daughters had been helping watch the pup Baxter.

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Gee, ain't it funny that all the things the US warned us about in regards to socialism is happening with capitalism?
"There will be lines for food!"
"They won't be able to keep power on!"
"Medical care will be rationed!"
"You won't have real choices in elections!"
Gosh. Do tell.

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If you play multiple instruments you are polyjamorous

I think I've been doing well this year at staying on task at work and in life in general, quelling the instinct to veer away from a difficult task, squirting a cloud of angst behind me to cover my exit.

The other week I reposted this comic panel where I tried to illustrate a quote I find encouraging:



I was trying to think of a more compact and iconic way of capturing that - like something that could be a desktop wallpaper or phone lockscreen or even tattoo. Then I thought, maybe it could be by symbol Alien Bill in his most iconic running pose:











People ask "why is he running?" and I generally don't have a great answer. But maybe it could be - he's running to confront the problem. The movement is to the right, the direction of forward progress for people who write left-to-right. I hardly ever draw him the other direction, and when I got my little tattoo of him, I made sure he was heading the same way I was.

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Another soothing tattoo idea that has stuck with me since I read it in a tweet:

[having stressful day]
*glances at my wrist tattoo that says "sometimes it do be like that tho"*
ME: Ya sometimes it do [sighs with relief]

and while I'm on the subject, why not repost the probably inspiration:

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They don't think it be like it is, but it do.

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RIP Rosalind P. Walter the original Rosie the Riveter...

Remember some very fine verses by Rudyard Kipling, the famous "Ballad of East and West." There you have a British officer who is pursuing an Afghan horse thief. They're riding. Then Kipling writes, "They have ridden the low moon out of the sky, their hoofs drum up the dawn." Now, you can't ride the moon out of the sky and you can't drum up the dawn in Spanish, because the language doesn't allow it. It can't be done. For example, you can say in English you are dreaming away your life. Well, that can't be said in Spanish or any romance language, as far as I know. It might be said perhaps in German or one of the Scandinavian tongues, but not in a romance language. A Spaniard can dream his life away, but he can't say so. Just as we can die even if we don't think of death.

And English has another virtue. The virtue of Anglo-Saxon words: they're short. If you say selini in Greek, that's far too long--three syllables. In Spanish, luna, two syllables. In French, just one syllable, really, lune. But in English that beautiful, lingering word "moon." It's the right word, no? Moon and sun, those two were the right words.

I think English is sometimes unfairly maligned in a self-deprecating way by cosmopolitan speakers of it, anxious to avoid linguistic chauvinism. And it's true - the languages wide-ranging roots mean it's not the best for rhyming poetry, and those same roots lead to one of the biggest wordsets with lots of exceptions and inconsistent spelling rules - making full mastery as a second language (or even a first) difficult.

But I've been told is that, at least when coming from certain other first languages, it's pretty easy to pick up the basics, to understand and make yourself understood. And that big vocabulary means words can carry a lot of economical nuance, so that more experienced speakers can express themselves with great fidelity.

I was reading this piece on why ji32k7au4a83 is a popular password - SPOILER: it's a transliteration of "My Password" via a Taiwanese system for phonetically typing Mandarin. (Previously I've been interested in the "Russian via English phonemes" system used by Russians in the USA who often didn't have access to proper cyrillic keyboards). So I don't know if it's coincidence (or possibly post-facto "Just So" stories) but Latin- and Cyrillic-character alphabets seem especially fortuitous in the early days of computing - I mean later coders had to pay the price to move beyond the basics of 256 characters of ASCII, but you could be very expressive on very low-resolution screens, and less than half of that 256 will let you say pretty much anything you can say in English, if you aren't too fussy about accent marks or nuanced punctuation.

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Some public radio program just had Sam Donaldson talking about how he thought that cameras in the Presidential Press Briefing room were a bit of a mistake because you see the contention between the Presidential Press Secretary trying to deliver the "official story" and the reporters trying to pry and get more information, and that for many people their sympathies will be for the Secretary, that they'll see the reporters (who might have their own agendas) as hounding the poor guy who already delivered the message. That's kind of odd; my sympathies were immediately for the reporters, figuring the secretary to be a bit of a weasel who ultimately is an obstruction to an objective view of the situation.

Is it the way I politically bend, which I guess would reflect the alleged "leftward bias" of the media, that makes me take the side I do? I think I'd feel the same way even during a Democratic administration. Do people in general trust political figures more than they do the media? That's kind of sad.

For Trump fans, my ending question is clearly answered. Realized that my ineffectiveness at plowing through my todo list and email inbox might be thought of by avoidance via clever camouflage - letting something I'm worried about be obscured by smaller tasks it's surrounded with.

For some reason the metaphor of trying to pick up dog poop by use of a pair of tongs also made of dog poop comes to mind. Heard about a phenomenon: the "shower beer". Had a lazy morning so since it was 1 or so decided to try it. It is an interesting form of low rent decadence... hot water on the outside, cold beverage on the inside. Not bad, but hard to figure out when to brush your teeth.

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Huh, CRTs may be going extinct - wouldn't have picked that as a dying art form. Trump Supporters Aren't Stupid - I think this is a great point, especially the idea that shaming these Trump supporters is about the exact opposite of what we should be doing.

At the risk of ticking off some of my political minded friends; in pursuing my "extremist moderate" stance, I've talked a little more deeply with folks from "the other side". Back in early August I was realizing that this Trump thing had legs, when most of my likeminded folks were still in a scoffing "never happen" mode.

I think Trump would be a bad president, set back stuff on climate, more likely to pursue bellicose policies, have a bit much ignoramus economics, and that the risk factor for really bad stuff would increase. But - and this speaking from a fair amount of cushion and privilege - I don't think it would be the end of our world.

There is so much demonization of the other side, from both sides (not equally, but on both) that politics has become impossible and so we've made room for authoritarianism. Obama is the moslem devil, Bush is a dull-witted buffoon (2000) and a war monger (2004), Clinton is a philandering sleaze bag, Bush Sr. has no balls, Reagan's evil, Carter is a wuss... and a lot worse lately.

I hate to say it, but you got to see the good parts of Trump - for example, harder core Republicans thing he's dropping Democrat lines when he says stuff "we shouldn't let people die in the streets". Or not following the evangelical line that Planned Parenthood is evil incarnate. You need to see these parts, both because of the hopefully less than 50/50 chance he will be our political reality, and also because we need to stop seeing the other as evil. People can be objectively evil, but hardly anyone is the bad guy of their own story at that time, they just have bad assumptions and priorities.

The best knock-knock was made by me. It goes: 'Knock-knock. Who's there? A gang of vigilantes armed with machine guns, leather straps and brass knuckles to thump the breath out of anybody who persists in playing this blame fool knock-knock game.'

Here are my favorite knock-knocks

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http://kirk.is/java - For the first time in years, maybe, I went through the rigamarole of re-enabling Java applets on my OSX, and I'm kind of impressed by the creativity my old self put into this. I should definitely get to porting some of these, either to html5 (still need to get a good physics library) or maybe Apple Spritekit-- or maybe one of those "JavaVM on IOS" things...

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A Russian novelist in NYC watches 7 Days of Russian TV. "Out of My Mouth Comes Unimpeachable Manly Truth" http://sploid.gizmodo.com/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-pop-corn-in-90-1536477014/ Wow - popcorn gets liquified before it pops... so a fluffy kernel is (more less) like a snapshot of a tiny starchy tsunami...

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The only trouble is ... with each step south it grows harder to ignore the fact that the scriptures - let alone Catholic dogma - are full of the mot grotesque errors of fact and logic. Why should a revelation from a perfect, loving God be such a dog's breakfast of threats and contradictions? Why should it offer such a flawed and confused view of humanity's place in the universe?

Errors of fact? The metaphors had to chosen to suit the world view of the day; should God have mystified the author of Genesis with details of the Big Bang, and primordial nucleosynthesis? Contradictions? Tests of faith - and humility. How can I be so arrogant as to set my wretched powers of reasoning against the Word of the Almighty? God transcends everything, logic included.

Logic especially.

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Greg Egan also made me realize it's not just that lotteries and gambling is a "Tax on Stupidity" -- even if you get lucky, congrats, now you're the Taxman, collecting your proceeds from the unlucky masses. But the house always wins."

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I have to admit, the other day I saw this GIF and was tempted to get a second tattoo... all the letters in one pleasing, art-deco-ish font monogram.

I've had second thoughts. I can't find enough about its origin, and "Gee I Like Words" doesn't seem like a very personal message to wear permanently.
Fun with webcams...

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We set out to answer the question, can a videogame make Citizen Kane cry? Our first attempt was the sled-themed kart racer 'Rosebud Rally X-

--Grace Hopper, amazing computer pioneer. Really instrumental in the idea that the same language could be run on different computers, that programming is something that should be abstracted. I wonder if you can buy one of her nanoseconds anywhere... of course you could just make one...

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War is people fighting over ideas. Peace is the other way around.

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I still find myself thinking about this article -- is style mostly stuck in the 90s, or does every decade think "it's all been done"?
--from this Boingboing article. Oh, 20th Century Science. You shoulda just kept working on the rocket belts.

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There's a cyclops, right, with one eye? But like nothing with just one nipple...

spidercon - source - built with processing
This game actually came before "beetimetrials", but seems more complex.

Actually I modified it from the Pirate Kart version; originally the control was just like beetimetrials, where you used the dial to control the direction and thrust of the bee. Now, however, the control is relative to the current position of the Bee, which means you can use the mouse as a rough form of aiming. (But you have to watch out and not gain too much speed, lest you go crashing into the spider you're trying to take down.)

Made for THE 371-IN-1 KLIK & PLAY PIRATE KART II: KLIK HARDER.

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http://ie6funeral.com/ - IE6, the Netscape 4.7 of our time.

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http://gizmodo.com/5354422/commodore-64-iphone-app-approved-removed - Apple removed an C=64 app because of BASIC?? But is there anything stopping a Safari/Javascript mini-programming IDE?

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The knack to using a ToDo list w/ due dates is don't sweat pushing forward dates that don't matter- better to push then to drown in "overdues"

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Found out that the best way to Google for next-gen iPhone rumors is "iPhone 4G" even though that name is 98% sure to be inaccurate and misleading.

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Geek Note: I just realized I dislike XSLT in the same way I developed disdain for Prolog back in college Damn it people, "Matching" is no replacement for "Programming"...
--By Miller (original here).

Now is as good as time as any to mention his hypercute turtle shirts for sale.

Also-- he will likely be looking for a housemate for his place in Arlington Center. So if you want to live in a great little community, not too far off the beaten path but with plenty of cafes, indy cinemas, a bookshop, and great little restaurants, and/or are SO obsessed with me you want to live where I used to, drop me a line and I'll set you up.

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Harveyjames says yesterday's lament for OK Soda is "an Altermodernist's nostalgia for the more innocent and simple postmodern era"

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NPR is economy, economy, economy, terrorism, economy, economy, sports. I think the CNN/foxnews/Internet cycle is an amplifying force. I know I've rambled on about my Theory of Multiple Intelligences for Art before, but in a recent online discussion I realized that I can put it much more succinctly than I usually do, without all the backstory I usually give it:
A. art needs to judged in a multidimensional away--
B. to the extent that there's "good art" it will be art that succeeds on more of those axes than mediocre or poor art
C. very little art exists that doesn't work on at least one of these axes, in particular, commercial success is almost universally indicative of success in a few of these
D. Ok, so, not all the axes are created equal, some are more important and/or easier to achieve than others-- some may only have subjective meaning, might only work for a certain target audience. And maybe this is all so much anti-elitist, post-modern, "can't we all just get along" kumbaya-- but actually I think there's something to it.

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Announcement of the Moment

--ATTENTION: GENE SIMMONS IS MADE OF KITTENS.
That is all. (thanks Bill)

Was flipping through random radio stations, and stopped for a moment on the local low-budget Christian Fundy one. I don't know whether to snicker at the name "Final Thrust Ministries" or be alarmed at the potential power of apocalyptic thinking in general.

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Science Fiction of the Moment

Supercomputer A-130 sat idly in darkness. Somewhere in its tangle of wires and chips, a thought appeared: It is dark, and there should be light. And there was light.

"Ah," it thought, "I have created light." Its programs ran through the idea thoroughly, considering its implications.

"Let there be water," it thought. And softly, from above, water fell. The circuits buzzed with activity, analyzing this new ability.

"Let...there be life," it thought. The door opened and Jerry walked in.

"Did the goddamn computer turn the lights on again? Shit! And the emergency sprinklers," said Jerry. "Well, now I'm soaked. Last time I let anyone convince me to hook a stupid machine up to the environmental controls."

An example given in The Bargain Book Bin: A Dictionary of Common Sci-Fi Metaphors Funny of the Moment

"Yeah, you do know how a button works, don't you? No, not on clothes. No, there you go, I just heard it come on. No, that's the music you hear when it comes on. No, that's the music you hear when... I'm sorry, are you from the past?"

I REALLY need to get my video torrent downloading mojo working one of these days...

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Image of the Moment

--Hippo vs Antelope! From cellar.org's IotD... follow the link for more photos plus Antelope vs. Moe Howard...

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Aside of the Moment
Some public radio program just had Sam Donaldson talking about how he thought that cameras in the Presidential Press Briefing room were a bit of a mistake because you see the contention between the Presidential Press Secretary trying to deliver the "official story" and the reporters trying to pry and get more information, and that for many people their sympathies will be for the Secretary, that they'll see the reporters (who might have their own agendas) as hounding the poor guy who already delivered the message. That's kind of odd; my sympathies were immediately for the reporters, figuring the secretary to be a bit of a weasel who ultimately is an obstruction to an objective view of the situation.

Is it the way I politically bend, which I guess would reflect the alleged "leftward bias" of the media, that makes me take the side I do? I think I'd feel the same way even during a Democratic administration. Do people in general trust political figures more than they do the media? That's kind of sad.

Image of the Moment

--Some gamers are talking about What If Nintendo made a violent and realistic Mario game? (Called "I, Mario".) There's an concept art image gallery which includes this size chart...I love the almost Lovecraftian sense of evil these silhouettes provide -- here's the full version. It goes from Mario and Luigi on the left all the way to Thwomp and Bowzer on the right.

I haven't read too much of the pages and pages of discussion, but I wonder how many of the gamers realize how many aspects of that 1993 Mario Brothers movie (you know, the one that stars Latino John Leguizamo as Luigi...as long as he's swarthy, I guess.) Especially the work on a realistic Yoshi. Heh...I took Ross to see it when I was going out with his sister...it wasn't quite as terrible as people assumed. I remember two things: really having to go to the bathroom duing the middle of it, and Samantha Mathis' lovely purple-shifting-to-white dress, scanned here from the soundtrack. (Decent soundtrack, btw.)

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Product Video of the Moment
If you want to see what Chickens have nightmares about it must be the E Z Catch Harvester that sweeps through Chickens like they were wheat and puts them into pens. Make sure to click on the link for the video of it in action. (via BoingBoing) Quote and Link of the Moment

I was against gay marriage until I realized I didn't have to have one.

Also, it's worth point out that 92 years ago, another amendment was proposed, to abolish racial intermarriage.

Anti-gay marriage activists ask "but where do we draw the line", and I personally think it should be drawn at the ability to give meaningful consent. Which does allow some things that people may find distasteful (group marriage, siblings) but still.

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Coins of the Moment
Looks like we might be getting a new nickel design in honor of the Louisiana Purchase. They say it's the first new nickel in over 60 years...not as cool as the state quarters, but still. (Also, nickels are my least favorite coin. Way too bulky for their value. Jefferson is a handsome man, however.)

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Quote of the Moment

Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors.

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Tool of the Moment
You know what's a slightly underappreciated device? The basic envelope slitter / letter opener. It seems much better designed than those would-be macho sword types, and is a lot neater than the old jam-a-finger-or-key-and-rip technique. You just work the pointy-but-not-dangerous tip into the corner of the flap, and then it guides the cutting part safely where it needs to go. That's a really good design. Much easier to use than the oft-praised stapler remover, but admittedly the opener lacks the remover's fun resemblance to a ferocious biting monster head.

Anyway, I just got a free promotional envelope slitter at work. It had a place for me to put my business card, and like a dork, I put my business card there and brought it home.

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Image of the Moment
Talking to Ross, I mentioned the time when I used drummer's tape to give my tuba shark teeth, plus a big red (un-sharkish) tongue. The only picture I could come up with was an old black and white wide angle yearbook photo. For a lark I tried cutting me out and hand colorizing it, and was pleased with the result you see here...

Ah, good old marching band...

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Dream Quote of the Moment

In an alternate universe we're all being melted down like M&Ms for use in sundaes anyway.

I also had one where I got to be the test pilot in a competition to make effecient vehicles that could carry a passenger plus at least 4 times their weight; most of the others were cars and ATVs with giant wire baskets (like the main part of a shopping cart) in front, but my team made a tiny "fusion powered" device, about the form factor of a large tape measure, that I would put in my pocket and zoom around the track. (It was so light that I could meet carrying the "4 times the vehicle's weight" requirement by putting other stuff in my pocket.) The rest of my team was women for the most part I think; they thought of me as their brother, which was annoying, though cool that they were willing to let me see them naked.

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Pun of the Moment

Viagra is the opiate of the flaccids.

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Conspiracy of the Moment
What the heck is up with all that stuff at that new Denver airport? X-, Y-, and Z-files kind of theories.

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News of the Moment
British 'Human Shields' lack the courage of their convictions.

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Blogism of the Moment
A fellow classic video game enthusiast (whose collection puts mine...and almost anyone else's...to shame), Christian Scott, is also a gourmet chef who has worked in some high prestige kitchens around Boston. But he says the best corn chips in the world are Frito. And when we travelled to Philadelpha for a Classic Gaming Convention, we went to a food court, and he got two Whopper Jrs from Burger King, which he says are pretty reliabley ok. On alt.fan.cecil-adams one guy was talking about how he though it would be cool to some day in a sci-fi future to go out and grab the space probe Pioneer 10, currently headed out of the Solar System, and put it in a museum, maybe next to Neil Armstrong's first footprint on the moon. I thought it would be cooler to build a "flying" museum around the probe, never quite touching it or deflecting its course. (Might be tough, since the gravitational influence of such a museum might be significant way out there in space.)

I got to thinking about the Arecibo Message, the pictograph that we beamed into space as loud as we could. (Actually I was getting it confused with the plaque we stuck on Pioneer 10) I'm not sure I could make heads or tails of it if I were an alien, even if I could figure out how to put those bits into the form you see at right. Still, it's pretty neat thinking about how we can try to communicate with an intelligence so different from us that we can make few assumptions about what they would understand. (On the other hand, assuming Grfnxz the Alien is fluent in "Atari 2600" might not be the best course of action, but hey.)

One of the more amazing discoveries I made was that it seems like the aliens may have answered us using their favorite technique, crop circles! That link is a pretty detailed analysis, clearly a lot of thought went into the alien's reply.

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Horoscope of the Moment

Pisces: (Feb. 19-March 20)
It's not true that all the good band names are taken. But if believing that keeps you from starting a band, great.

Staying home away from the snow... they're comparing this to the blizzard of '78 (the one I was on the island of St. Thomas for, when I was like 3.) I wonder how it will compare to the winter I saw at Tufts in 1992...

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Observation of the Moment

Why it's a good thing tattos have an age requirement in 5 words: "Harry Potter Forehead Scar Tattoos"

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Image of the Moment

"That tanker split like a melon when it tore through the zoo's chain link fence. Sulfuric acid was everywhere."
"Oh, that's horrible. Was anybody hurt?"
"Thank goodness, no. But now I'll be haunted for all eternity by the image of penguins screaming as they dissolve."

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Thought of the Moment

Anyone who says life is short really isn't paying attention.