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This weekend Cora came up and we hung out with Melissa's nieces, did a climbing gym, played some Lego, then today we went to the Stone Zoo.

Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over again?
Make the same unforgiveable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

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Cool video on the original German jerry can. While the history of it (as a superior design then copied by other countries to varying degrees of fidelity and success) was interesting my favorite part of the video is the first part, focused on the design- especially the three handles on top, allowing different configurations like one person carrying 4 empties, or 2 people cooperating to carry one, etc.



(A lot of other cool details in the design as well, an air pocket that would make preventing it from sinking if dropped in water, very durable internal weld, a super clever latch that precluded the need for extra funnels/nozzles...)

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Billboard seen in Mario Kart Tour, shared by the game's official Facebook account in 2019. via

Would have killed them to have called the fake company "Web BOWSER"? My friend Sophie got a lot of politicians to celebrate her walking every Cambridge street quarantine project

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Unpopular Opinion: I feel like Americans are using "whilst" way too much. Quick sketch of "Witch" for a round of the mobile game "Draw Something" (Like "Words with Friends" but Pictionary.)

I've been playing for like... yikes, 8 years (!) but only one other buddy, OssianGrr, has been steady for years of that - we seem to try and get at least one exchange a day.

Anyway, if in these weeks of social distancing you'd like to add a little doodling-and-guessing, I think I'm "kirkjerk" (or maybe that username in my gmail email address). I'd recommend the $5 Pro version on a tablet... (the store has regular and "Classic" and not sure what the upgrade path is... but if you don't mind ads you can play for free as well I think.)

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Insider Trading by Senators based on closed door information. That's cool.

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Wait, is this the first time Trump used the term "nasty" not targeted at a woman? Progress?

Man, between shit like his own tax returns and, I dunno, making sure we have sufficient CoronaVirus(tm) tests, this dude just hates numbers.

NUMEROPHOBIA: the struggle is real.

When you're a kid, you don't realize you're also watching your mom and dad grow up.

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via What happens when an AI can only think in water or fire or flowers...

I'm trying to think if this back-propagation of the way an AI sees - how its expectations of what is there to be seen controls what is seen, how it's interpreted - says something profound about the human's way of observing the world or if it's a mere superficial parallel. (more info here)

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Life is just a really complicated exam, in which most people fail by copying from others, not realizing that everyone has a different question paper.

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Is it just me or would like, schedule siesta/naptime make life like 8 times better? Melissa's old company had a nap room... my current company doesn't have that kind of culture really... Arab atheists, tough road to hoe. A part near the end, saying that for a while Islam didn't have as much of a the science / religion conflict as the Christian West did, reminded me of what I read in Karen Armstrong's works about how Christianity kind of hitched its wagon to science in the 1700s Enlightenment, assumed it would withstand the harshness of skeptical experimental review rather than just being poetically true in broad strokes, but as science moved into different places, some parts of the religion could never get over the need to be factually true, so if you can gin up a reason the Earth is only around 6000 years old, you have to start figuring out why God is burying so many fossils, or permitting the devil to construct such a rich and consistent and wonderfully weird tapestry of the geological and biological history of Earth. (Or, and this is the one that threw me off from my simplistic faith, why a monolithic God lets there be so many other religions around, so many good people so misled.) Mop

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No offense to (the?) Charm City, but my weekend would be somewhat better if it was not ending with a flight to Baltimore.

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Waiting at an airport bar, reading, looking up at a March Madness game- oh, highlights, just the baskets. It's funny how you can tell which team is leading, by seeing which teams scores they're replaying- the other team has almost always made as many baskets, but not being a part of the easy narrative they're shuffled aside. Made the rounds, but amazing:

via. I saw this Marvel Avengers movie reference a few week ago and it stuck with me, so I tracked it down... kinda sadly true. I think best software development practices are about making it easier to fix the screwups when they occur, rather than trying to make little worlds where screwups are less likely. (DNA: "The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.")         So my old license photo and my new. Old one seems really old... at least 2003 or so, and I'm wondering if it's late 90s. The new one is just odd because they don't let you wear your glasses.

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Do what you love and the money will laugh at you.

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Because of a giveaway the copley boloco line goes down half the block FREE BURRITOS ARE ONLY FREE IF YOUR TIME HAS NO VALUE PEOPLE
thehose - source - built with processing

This one came out pretty well! For Klik of the Month Klub #45 albeit late, since they cancelled the Ladies Auxiliary on me... anyway, try to control the hose as it goes and puts out the raging fire in the building... So, pretty decent oil painting of a woman...


Except it's not a painting of a woman, it's a painted woman...

Here's the page with even more mind-bending examples. The "WHAT IS THIS?" look on the other's guy face in that one shot is priceless.

--"My Uncle Cthulhu" by Fred Bastide -- Lovecraft meets the Hell's Angels. Read about the making thereof. (Formerly archmage's LJ background image.)

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http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/19/sacramento-to-make-i.html - tent cities in Sacramento. Will they be called Bushvilles or Obamatowns?

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Getting tired of Republicans using "Democrat" as an adjective. I guess it resolves an ambiguity, but they make sound pejorative, like D's plans are about individuals not ideas.

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"Kirk is the darkest of the white chocolate."

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"Will you go get me a beer?" "Sure. Will you pour me a shot?" "Of course" "... and thus the mutual enabling is complete"

• I made a note to write about this one Arby's ad they had playing in Cleveland circa 1987 or so? It just had this goofy nebbish guy going "I want BEEF - LOTS of BEEF -- eee arrr!" I think he then knocks down some columns, obviously designed for easy knocking-downage, ala Samson. I think the close then had him say, sounding almost chastened "Arby's, for a manly kind of guy". Something like that. (2019 UPDATE - here is the ad)
  
  I just wanted to share that somewhere in my brain are some cells that fire almost anytime I hear BEEF discussed.
• Learn about the homeless by what they carry on their persons.

• Recall: it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slowly.

  Of course girlfriend cmg thinks I drive like a grandparent anyway.

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Travelog of the Moment
Today I took trains to Osaka, third largest city of Japan. Osaka is know for its cuisine, its dialect Osaka-ben (confession: it all sounded like Japanese to me), and the easy-going nature of its people. Scheduled to be in Tokyo, I was worried I didn't have enough time, and while a daytrip is never enough to really take in a city, I got to hit the major things Josh suggested.
Ugh. Still feel like chipped beef on toast, cold.

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Current Events of the Moment

Starr insists that "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" promotes drugs. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asks whether a sign that said "Bong Stinks for Jesus" would be more permissible. Souter asks whether a simple sign reading "Change the Marijuana Laws" would also be "disruptive." Starr says that interpreting the meaning of the sign must be left to the "frontline message interpreter," in this case, the principal. Then Starr says schools are charged with inculcating "habits and manners of civility" and "values of citizenship." Yes, sir. In the first six minutes of oral argument Starr has posited, without irony, a world in which students may not peaceably advocate for changes in the law, because they must be inculcated with the values of good citizenship.

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Quote of the Moment

Unix: Some say the learning curve is steep, but you only have to climb it once.

That is a really good point; my Unix skills stay reasonably sharp even when I'm mostly doing Windows-y stuff, becuase I've taken in some of the core philosophical ideas behind it. Image of the Moment

--An indoor ferris wheel, at the Times Square Toys-R-Us. (Despite the blue center, I thought that the brilliant oranges and yellows made it a poor match for the "blue eight" theme.) Each car had a different toy theme, from Monopoly to Bob the Builder to Spongebob. Almost as cool as the Mall of America's coaster.

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Quote and Link of the Moment

"When we were making the movie at Disney, people used to hold up crosses when the Tron walked through the halls," Lisberger said. "We were making a film that was from the netherworld, and they were just very afraid. This was the future and it was rolling down the most conservative linoleum hallways on the earth."

I love that film...so bummed I bought it right before the bonus-laden collector's DVD came out. And given what "love of CGI" did to Disney's traditional animation studios (albeit 25 years later) maybe the cross-wielders were right! Photos of the Moment
I took a lot of really bad photos this party...I couldn't really see people on the little screen well enough to frame shots. Also, the lighting made it easier to see the dust on the lens.

One highlight of the evening was a Spongbob Piñata! I filled him with candy and toys: hershey's kisses and reese's mini peanutbutter cups, some lousy mints, shamrock eraser heads, happyface squeeze balls, cheap koosh-like critters...(Jim and Andy amused themselves for the rest of the evening with "Hey Kirk, what's that on your face?" The answer being one of those little balls that they would then hurl at me. I guess that's what I get for agreeing with a "you must take a shot before taking a swing" rule for Spongebob.)



This is Peterman Pummeling the Piñata! Poor Spongebob. There was some debate if this counted as "gay bashing", but we decided it was an artistic statement against the commercialization of childhood. In any case, there was candy and toys to be had...you can see a few being flung from a hole in Sponge Bob's back. So my photo had great timing at least.



Ksenia, myself, and Jane, and my books. Only Jim's poor framing saves this from being an utterly utterly generic party photo, but I'm not going to pass up the chance to get a snapshot between two cute gals. (Actually the books were, surprisingly in retrospect, the only victim of errant piñata swings...)



Ksenia did so much work doing the food for the party...we had a Russian caterer for the pork kabobs, but the rest (this kind of blintz-like pastry, cute little hamwiches, a julienne chicken casserole, salad, veggies and dip) was handmade by her, and she organized all the kitchen stuff. She also surprised me with a cake...and even got them to put little alien bills on it! Here it is with Erin, who was the other Guest of Honor. (We watched some of her tapes from film school, that was pretty cool.)



Overall the party seemed like a big success. Some videogames in the afternoon, then a lot of great food, this Karaoke game (it rates you based on how on-key you are) and DDR, a lot of shmoozing in the middle room, Erin's films, the piñata, some dancing (though it was kind of ruined by "too many DJs spoil the mix" and a lot of cut off songs...there was a techno contigent, but a lot of people found that too hard to dance to, so it was kind of a mishmash.

backlog flush #42

• Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About...a funny funny website, and also the FUNNIEST book I read in 2003. I can't wait until his next book is released stateside in May.
• I've only worked a little bit of retail, but I've been witness to enough stupid scenes to realize Customers Suck!
• The All Sports Band...cheesiest gimmick band ever?
• I made a note how I wanted to mention how it's possible to weirdly program yourself with slogans...one time, at band camp (literally) I was determined to have the worst time. I had just moved, was a miserable preadolescent, and didn't want be at camp. All through the camp I told myself "I hate everything about this place.". At the end of the week, during the final concert, something annoyed me, and I started thinking "I hate..." and my brain automagically filled in "everything about this place". That kind of scared me.
• Bring Back Kirk! Bring Back Kirk! Bring Back Kirk!
• "I'll turn yer groin into puddin'!"
  "Och, you speak like a poet...but y' punch like one tew!"
  --Groundkeeper Seamus and Groundkeeper Willy on The Simpsons
• Artsy Sci-Fi Puzzle game. Love the music, not crazy about the genre. LAN3 recommends fullscreening the browser window, and people on metafilter recommended cranking up the monitor brightness.
• Top 15 Biblical Ways To Acquire A Wife. I always thought Jacob had the rawest deal. ("Agree to work seven years in exchange for a woman's hand in marriage. Get tricked into marrying the wrong woman. Then work another seven years for the woman you wanted to marry in the first place.")
• NPR had an interview with the author of "The Falling Man" (last link on the page), about some almost repressed photos of people forced to jump from the World Trade Center, and one man in particular who seemed to embrace his fate.
• Memory's A Traitor...Mary Anne Mohanraj writes some amazing stuff.

I said 'War'. Huh. Good God, y'all.

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Dialog of the Moment

"I've got three FIST fighters coming from my left!"
"Copy, Stray Dog!"
"I - I, I don't think I'm Stray Dog."
"Copy that, Red Rooster!"
"I, I don't think I'm Red Rooster either."
"No problem, Nasty Butler!"
"I'm ending this transmission."

Goofy but not as bad as you might expect, with some pretty good potshots at the original movies. ("Use the instrument panel, Loke!" "What?" "The instrument panel...that's what it's there for! Advance weaponry DESIGNED to hit tiny targets." "Ok, ok.")

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News of the Moment
So they had that strike, and Saddam reports up late alive and well. Or is it really Saddam? He has all those doubles...not only would that add to the difficulty of killing him and confirming he was killed, but you wonder if the command structure is entrenched enough to support "virtual saddamness", with the central role played by a double...or maybe Saddam himself, pretending to be a double. Man, keeping up the Star Wars vibe, it's kind of like that whole Amidale/Padmé thing from "Phantom Menace".

For people who prefer to get information via shiny web toys, MSNBC's Iraq Interactive Library is worth a look.

For minute-by-minute bloggish coverage, try agonist.org.

Luckily-and this is true-we have Optimus Prime helping defend us as a member of the National Guard.

And finally, here are some images about what it looks like if Iraq beats us.

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Oddly Disquieting Headline of the Moment

"Official describes Bush as 'undeterred'"

Not sure why the phrasing caught my attention. Maybe because "undeterred" is kind of a theme with this guy. A while back, an essay by Robert Abbott titled Video Games Are Incredibly Stupid! made the rounds. (Parts of today's entry won't make sense unless you have read his original essay.) It was a strident argument against modern video gaming. It provoked many responses including mine, which he reprinted under the "mixed responses" category. I've added a few screenshots just for fun.

mario kart, multiplayer fun

As I'm sure many people have pointed out, you paint with a very broad brush when it comes to videogames. I speak as a gamer who has collected "classic" games for a long while, but mostly enjoys modern multi-player games, with 4 people dueling on screen at once.

Classic Games are interesting to me in the way they had to create microcosms from scratch; thus, there was some more flexibility in the worlds they gave the player to interact with, along with fewer expectations about how good things needed to look (one programmer could do all the code, the sound effects, and the art). Some of this has been lost as games have grown in complexity, but I think your view of modern video games is very limited. You mistake some of the dominant trends for the whole thing. Yes, 90% of modern games are derivative crap, but that's been true through many eras of gaming. Do you know how many Space Invaders and Pac Man clones there were? No, because they've properly fallen into the historical dustbin, of interest only to fans of the history of the field. (Actually, it's probably more like 95% of games are derivative, and half of those are crap, and the other half provides decent experiences for fans of the genre.)

battle chess

Picking on Battle Chess seems a little silly. It wasn't very realistic at all (little in that era of games was); in fact, the little "piece takes piece" animations were modeled after some of those same "silent comedies" you later so freely praise! It was broad, physical comedy. At one point I went through and ran all 8x8 "Piece X takes Piece Y" combos to see them all, but still I don't think it was a "quest for realism" that brought this game to market.

As for the "In fact, to this day no one has made a movie as funny as the silent comedies," I don't know if I agree. I think the audience reactions you describe have as much to do with audiences of the era than with the content itself. I haven't watched many silent films, but it has been my experience that some of the comedies from the period right after in a similar physical style (Marx Brothers, Three Stooges) aren't laugh out loud funny for modern viewers.

robotron: too much for 3D?

I don't think striving for realism is as negative thing as you do. (Though I've read where Eugene Jarvis shares your opinion about 2D-ish overhead views vs more limited first person perspectives. Robotron would be a pretty tough game, or have far fewer enemies, if he had to give it the first person perspective.) For one thing, it's not pure realism people crave in general, but detail--they want to play a Space Marine or drive a car REALLY fast or Kung Fu Fight, not be a clerk or be stuck in a traffic jam or wander a mall. Having games get closer to what it might "really" look like, rather than depending on the iconic representations that were all the classics could muster, is an interesting and worthy goal for gaming in and of itself.

the new zelda, aka 'celda'

Also, the quest for realism isn't the only force in the industry, though it is an important current source of conflict. Notably, Nintendo is bucking the trend...and sometimes being mislabeled as a "kiddy game" company because of it. One of the most notable examples of this is the upcoming installment of "Legend of Zelda." The earliest samples showed a very realistic looking combat, but it seems Miyamato is looking to buck the trend, and later movies of the work in progress show a very cartoony look. Many fans were horrified (mostly the teenage boy brigade that you like to pick on) but--and this is my main point--there is more to modern videogameing than these boys and the games that cater to them.

You might think that Miyamato is the exception that proves the rule...after all, he's an old-schooler himself, having made games starting with Donkey Kong and moving into the future...but many game houses are experimenting with looks and styles other than "as realistic as possible." There's an interesting trend using "Cel Shading" that provides some very interesting new looks. Still 3D, but more animation-inspired. And even old school game style and variety is making a comeback in "party games" such as "Mario Party" or "Fuzion Frenzy," that bundle many small and unique classic style games in a single graphical and gaming context.

So in short, while I somewhat agree with some of your opinions about industry trends, I don't think you've looked deeply enough at the trends you disparage, or to see what else is going with video games.

--Kirk Israel

Mo's dad the doctor points out that a big honking thing of iced coffee on an empty stomach is probably not the best thing, that's a lot of acidic material for a stomach to handle. So for a while I'm going to try replacing my morning coffee and my evening grazing with Slim-Fast^tm. It just feels so corny though...

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Quote of the Moment

Oh I REALLY like your style, but this can't go up here, far too many nipples.

(She posts her art to the Love Blender somtimes, but you should check out her homepage for more)

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More Art of the Moment
Willard Scott in an air shaft. I've always said art is what you can get away with, and I mean it.