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Finally, my eyeglasses are like my politics: progressive (and helping me see a range of things clearly...)

So far it hasn't been tough to adapt - I'm probably helped by only needing mild prescriptions. Still gotta figure out best laptop lounging positions and the like.

I don't think that every villain in the world actually thinks they're being a good guy, but I do think that everybody creates a value system that justifies the actions they're taking, and and I think there's a difference between those two things. Not everybody believes that they're on the side of righteousness, but everybody has a way of justifying the actions they're taking. Not every villain has to be a misunderstood hero, and in fact I think there are a lot of instances throughout history of people who were obviously doing the wrong thing and probably had an understanding of that on some level, but had some rationale or justification for it. A lot of villains in literature and media have these weird, Thanos-esque philosophies of what it is that they're trying to do, and I think human motivation tends to come from more primal places than that. So a lot of the villains I write can be brilliant or clever (and, in fact, probably should be), but their motivation tends to be primal. They wanna be rich, they wanna have power, they wanna live forever. There's something deep down that is, when you break it down, not too complex. Right? If you look at the real world, the people that are doing bad stuff don't need complex motivations. They wanna rule the world! They wanna be rich! They wanna be unafraid that other people can ever screw them over, so they screw other people over. Evil is boring. Right? I kinda believe in the banality and mundanes of evil. Evil is just selfish impulses, which at the end of the day are really easy to understand. It's easy to understand why people do bad things. It's like "yeah, ok, you're selfish and scared and cruel, I get it". Being good is complex and beautiful and hard.

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people don't want to acknowledge–and in some cases genuinely dont get–that being mean frequently feels good. people are often having a great time being mean. being polite, sharing, and working to make the world a better place pays off fairly long term rewards. cutting in line or making fun of someone's outfit or taking the last doughnut pays off right now.

you don't have to be the misunderstood hero of your own grand narrative. a lot of the biggest douchebags in the world spend zero calories on thinking about this kind of thing: who they are, what it all means, whether or not it's right to be treating people how they do. you don't have to have a huge excuse or a justification. you just have to take what you want, as soon as you want it, and enjoy it.

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Pretty good set of small pieces on IPAs. I'm not one to yuck other folks' yums but I do suspect they're kinda overrated because it's such a recognizable flavor.

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Polarized Lenses: the IPA of the sunglasses world.
(Just irritated. I love the affectation of mirrorshades, but am annoyed that almost cheap mirrored option is also polarized. Don't, like, other people look at screens too?) The most wackadoodle things in Judge Benitez BS-laden decision to overturn CA's assault weapons ban. A judge really surfing fact free waves.
Busy day yesterday! My band has been dabbling with carefully socially distanced outdoor rehearsals:


Before that I had a facetime with my superniece Cora. Two only-children, we setup some parallel play. I made this Lego dragon-y thing...

I have to say, my reconstituted Lego collection (the ones from sets I got over the past few years, having split my old collection up among dear friends' kids) is frustrating. Bricks have gotten so specialized, or I just don't have enough of them, or something. It's cool there are so many joint-pieces, but annoying when you don't have enough of the same type.

Finally, I went back to my 2015 Global Game Jam game for the Atari 2600, Loaded4Bear, and created Loaded4Bear^AI the same game but with an option for a computer opponent... an idea I've had in the back of my head since we first made it. I also love video games where a computer opponent is playing by the same rules as the human...I contacted the musician (whose original chiptunes stuff is low-key the best part of the game) and the artist who touched up the old cover art.

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Here's Loaded4Bear AI gameplay:

*writing résumé*
Strengths? I'm great at multitasking
*explosion in kitchen*
My popcorn!
*car crashes through fence*
I forgot I was driving!

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An Oral (FNARR!) History of HBO's Real Sex. This show was in the news recently as a casualty of HBO deciding to remove its adult content, and that's unfortunate- it was such an enormously sex-positive show, and both the feature segments and the "people on the street" parts were fascinating. The two scenes I remember most were one scissors/blade enthusiast gal brightly saying "SKIZZORS!" and then the folks who had a full-on bacchanal with everyone in clown makeup and gear - that lingers in my mind as a golden standard of cheerful hedonistic enjoyment, and I wish I had more things in my life that I so blatantly delight in as much as they were enjoying their clownish time together.

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via

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The thee liquids for the Pride brass player: water, sunblock, valve oil

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Emma Hunsinger's How to Draw a Horse. So, so, so, good.

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Just heard a kid say 'yo mama so fat thanos had to snap twice.' The youth are in good hands.

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Speaking of Dennett, SMBC had a hot take on his flavor of compatibilism (i.e. how does the idea of free will in a universe that seems governed by the laws of cause and effect even work)

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"I hope you can let this go."

Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the selfsame sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,

Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music.

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Basic Instructions is now just rerunning its original run, but with some directors commentary. Still, today's opens with one of my favorite panels from it...
A detailed analysis of clickbait: The Internet Chumbox. Didn't realize quite how visceral it was, and how simple the formula.

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Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.

Me and Lucas parasailing at the Joisey Shoah...

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Say what you want about money, but theres no better mechanism for getting a stranger to make you a burrito.

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June Blender of Love

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Parasailing today. Really wanted to take my 1 Second Everyday up there, but I forgot my waterproof case, so I used a baggie, rubber bands, and some twine to make a waterproof case and lanyard.
6 or 7 weeks in to my CCAE drawing class, and I'm finally drawing something that looks human-ish....instructor thought this was the best one he'd seen from me...

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'Is easier to empty your pockets when your pants are on.' -Uninspiring Buddha, if pants had been invented then. #zentrousers

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Despite my usual commitment to rationality, I have some magical thinking about sports, as if my watching a live game can change Boston sports outcomes.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC8VJ9aeB_g - my sadness that "Django Unchained" is not about Django Reinhardt is tempered by that AMAZING remix of "The Payback"

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The people you are sure are wrong are just as sure that you are wrong. The only difference is they're wrong.

via 22 words
--Brilliant Find by Amber, take off the famous Chat Noir prints. (prints available for purchase!)

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"Once you get this flavor of HD, you can't go back" claims never seem to be really true for me. Stuff looks better, but it's not crucial.

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Just stumbled over a 2010 "Hot Springs" Quarter. WHAT IS GOING ON WITH YOU, US MINT??

-- Australian Red-Eyed Tree Frog from Wikimedia commons photos of the year, 2008 - some fascinating photos there.

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Got the chance to play with a friend's Palm Pre yesterday. That seems like a worthy device! I love how compact it feels, rounded like the old PEBL.

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http://www.word-detective.com/back-d.html , its vs it's - "it's" used to be the possessive! Too bad "'tis" got labeled as archaic.

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Hmm, I'm becoming a bit dependeing on Firefox's auto-URL-complete especially for odd dev'pt server - less diligent about saving URLs. So here's is where I prattle on for an entire entry about a gadget. I'm going to try and justify that by pointing out it also reflects my interest in User Interface. (And maybe even my vested interest in UI at 65 mph)

Hello, Sexy

This past few weeks I've been driving my Aunt and Uncle's Honda Odyssey for moving and hauling (and if you don't commute by car, nothing brings home the gas prices like a trip up to Rockport in a 18 mpg minivan... I swear the price at the roadside place was 3.99 9/10 on the way up and 4.09 9/10 on the way down.) A few times I was caught short, sans GPS, so I used that to justify an upgrade from my beloved Garmin 2610... they're so much cheaper than they used to be, and after having bought other models as presents for my mom and EB over the years, I was aware that they had also gone up in features. (And in my case, features even beyond "has a database that knows that the Big Dig is over")

In general GPSes feel like they've benefit from competition in general, and give the sense that they've really been listening to consumer complaints and suggestions... my new Garmin nüvi 260 (three cheers for umlauts!) shows 4 years of improvements in the following ways:

• USA and Canada came preloaded... with the 2610 I had to load software and synch, using this crappy Windowd 3.1-feeling program to parsimoniously select the areas I wanted information on (even with a memory card I was only getting coverage of some of the USA.)
• The thing has a battery so a momentary loss of power doesn't cause it to drop everything
• The touch screen is more responsive and in general the typing UI is improved, it guides you through entering addresses and it stops having you type once it can only give you a few options.
• The view is 3D and like I noted on my mom's at first I thought this was a gimmick but it actually plays a nice, subtle role in emphasizing the most relevant streets. (Still need to figure out, if I zoom out enough so it switches to 2D, is there any way to get it to say "North is always up"... I hate the view with the Atlantic on the right left. (duh, thanks LAN3))
• I haven't received proof of this with mine yet but I've seen how newer models do a much better job of picking up on poor satellite signals.
• My old one talked to me, but this one even reads street names! This seemed frightfully impressive until I remembered my Commodore 64 was doing the same thing in 1982. Only the US Female voice (and not the UK accent, which is my mom's preference for her Tom Tom) does this trick, and the end result in both sound and form is much like the psychotic computer GlaDOS from the videogame Portal.
• Calculator! World Clock! Currency Convertor! (Can you hear the scoffing?)
• It's tiny and light... and about a third the price of my old beloved brick.

There are a few things I'll miss...I get a feeling my old one had more random retail landmarks in its crufty old database. And it had physical buttons, including "speak" which would cause the voice to talk about the upcoming turn. I liked that, and the way this model prints a text summary of the next turn is probably more useful but less fun.

Mostly, though, they seem to be working to keep the screen uncluttered, so there only readouts on the map are "ETA" and "distance 'til turn". The 2610 had "current time", "time 'til turn" and most importantly "current speed"... I got spoiled by having a digital read out of speed handy, I still think digitally and reading from analog (on a speedometer, or even when looking at a clock) takes a mental cycles to convert.

(heh, just to throw some cold water on this, there are some rumors that the next iPhone will have real GPS... assuming that has the same real time highway traffic data that I think their Google maps already has, that might really be something.)

Anyway, I still think anyone who ever drives anyplace they don't know intimately should get one of these. I've found this cheap at thrice the price... it is to driving what cellphones are to making plans, just bringing up a ton of flexibility and security.

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young black guy working at dunkin has a ROXBURY hand tattoo--guess the gangsta aspect weirds me out but hey its my neighborhood now.

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all right! t worker says I can transfer my pass to my tap and go card at downtown crossing, no problem.

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living and working in Boston proper has its advantages. the number of gorgeous gals in little nothings of sundresses... yow






Evil B's baby done got born last night!

EBaby (I'm going to say the E stands for "Excellent") was 20 inches long, 9 lbs 6oz.

It wasn't the smoothest of deliveries, some long hours of labor culminating in a C-section, but mama sounded pretty chipper on the phone late last evening, exhilarated at bringing a new life into the world.

More details to follow, I'm sure.

Congratulations to the E-some Threesome!

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Debate of the Moment

"Look, it's a debate about whether you think marriage is between a man and a women."
"I disagree, I think it's a debate about whether you think gay people are part of the human condition or just a random fetish."

What a profoundly eloquent way of putting it. For being a short guy from a funny show, I think Jon Stewart is assembling a lot of gravitas. In a way that Stephen Colbert can't quite match, because his shtick is parody, while Stewart is rather sincere.

Similarly: Slate on the GOP's gay panic button not working this time.

I just finished a fascinating book.... "The Mezzanine" by Nicholson Baker, the same author who wrote "Vox" which was associated with the whole Lewinsky/Clinton thing. The book has what seems like a slightly gimmicky framing device, the narrative officially takes place during the course of a single escalator ride, though there's a strong flashback focus on his late morning and lunch hour, and then various childhood recollections.

What makes this book amazing is its attention to the tactile and design details of all these objects around us...it's astounding, kind of like "The Design of Everyday Things" meets "Rain Man" with just a dash of "American Psycho" and maybe "Still-life With Woodpecker's" respect of inanimate objects thrown in for good measures...from the mechanism of the escalator itself, to changes in milk carton design, from the evolution of paper towel dispenser in public restrooms to the little red pullstrings for bandaids that never worked. The book leaves you with a profound sense of recognition, a constant stream of "oh yeah..." when you realize how much thought has gone into the mass produced material objects that we are surrounded with.

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Passsage of the Moment

"Are you here for good?" I said, looking up at Chenault.

She smiled. "I don't know. I quit my job in New York." She looked up at the sky. " I just want to be happy. I'm happy with Fritz-so I'm happy here."

I nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, that seems reasonable."

She laughed. "It won't last nothing lasts. But I'm happy now."

"Happy," I muttered, trying to pin the word down. But it is one of those words, like Love that I have never quite understood. Most people who deal in words don't have much faith in them and I am no exception-especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far too relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony. I feel at home with these, because they're scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and it takes either a priest or a fool to use them with any confidence.

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Stuff on Kirk's Camera, Final Day



--This vehicle is sometimes seen around Arlington...car of 1,000 tchochkes! (or however you spell it...any hints? I'm far enough off that Google's "did you mean?" feature won't kick in) tchotchkes (thanks this Slate article!) Interesting that all these pictures were car or road related.

• "Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul."
• "If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry." --Chekhov
• 100 Movies That Deserve More Love.
• Mo was a very big fan of the Kenya video. The lion is too cute. I reccomend it.
• Vaporware tribute: Videogames that never were
• November is National Novel Writing Month ("NaNoWriMo"). Maybe I should give it a shot this year, if I remember.
• Gamespot's worst game of 2003: Gods and Generals. It seems like God forsook them; don't know about the Generals.
• You may well be richer than you think...but it's all relative.
• An early version of JoustPong didn't do too well in the 2003 Minigame Compo.
• I've had these weird sex pillows in the backlog forever. Dunno if I was ever thinking about trying 'em out or not, but here's the links.
• Notes on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #1...they say the comics were much better than the movie, but I thought it was an ok flick.

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Editorial of the Moment
Christopher Hitchins didn't like Reagan. "The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump."

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Article of the Moment
Near and dear to my heart, or at least my experience yesterday, is this Wired piece on the unpopularity of per-hour WiFi costs. I've heard some stories about places who just give it away for free and get a big return on investment. Ain't no way yesterday I was going to fork over a lot of cash just to use the T-mobile hotspot. (I paid at "The Computer Cafe" instead, but felt a little bit less like a tool for doing so...) I was up at 3:30 this morning, after having gone to bed before 8 last night. Guess I'm still on London time...but that 3am ride to Heathrow combined with "gaining" 5 hours made for a long day.

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Landmark of the Moment
London Eye was one of the coolest things we saw in England. It's a giant "observation wheel" (like a ferris wheel, but bigger) set right in Westminster, by Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. They built it for the Millennium celebrations, but then British Airways stepped in to run it full time. (Supposedly they might be looking to sell it...I certainly hope it remains a permanent attraction.) It takes about half an hour to go all the way around, and it generally doesn't have to stop to let people on and off. Anyway, it's such a cool thing to have built, I thought it deserved a photospread of its own...

Distance shots from tourbus, from two different days. Big Ben (well, its tower) is visible in the center of the second. I love the asymmetrical architecture of it, how it juts over the Thames, only supported by a few beams on one side.

Artsier shots, including a nearby elephant statue.

Here's an idea of what its capsules were like. Clever design, so views are never blocked by the infrastructure.

And of course there were some great views up there, including Mo in a tanktop. "Those people look like ants!"

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Link of the Moment
(Trying to get back in the hang of non-vacation-related updates...) WayTooPersonals is a gathering of real personal ads that definately fall into the realm of "Too Much Information" about the people who posted them. Happy Pride!

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Link of the Moment
It seems that British Marines don't quite know what to make of Gay Afghan Farmers...the quote at the very bottom was kind of funny.

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Funny But Evil Link of the Moment
Not to be anything but supportive of the whole Pride concept, but this Onion piece, Gay-Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance Of Gays Back 50 Years raises a few issues...

"I'd always thought gays were regular people, just like you and me, and that the stereotype of homosexuals as hedonistic, sex-crazed deviants was just a destructive myth," said mother of four Hannah Jarrett, 41, mortified at the sight of 17 tanned and oiled boys cavorting in jock straps to a throbbing techno beat on a float shaped like an enormous phallus. "Boy, oh, boy, was I wrong."

Personally, I like that not giving a damn is part of the point of the festivities, but it's something to think about.

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Quote of the Moment

The heterosexuals who hate us should just stop having us.

Koan of the Moment

When the Chinese Zen master Ta-mei was on his deathbed, he gave these last words to his students: "When it appears, don't try to avoid it. When it disappears, don't go chasing after it." At that moment, a squirrel scurried across the roof. "There's only this, nothing else," said Ta-mei. Then he died.

My current thought is that I'm one of the most or one of the least enlightened people I know. Intellectually I feel I'm very in tune with the ideals of Zen-- it seems very much in tune with the "die-hard materialist" stance of books such as Dennett's "Consciousness Explained"-- but I find myself slow to adopt the rituals. Perhaps I should begin sitting meditation.

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Links of the Moment
I'm not sure which is funnier. Landover Baptist Church is the Onion.com of Souther Baptists, but unlike most sites that take up the Onion style, it's really funny. On the other hand, in the "funny because it's true" category, the radio show Truths That Transform had an interview with evangelical missionaries to far off foreign lands. In this case, France. Mais Oui!