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I was making love to this girl, and she started crying. I said, 'Are you going to hate yourself in the morning?' She said, 'No, I hate myself now.'

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Windy Rainy Day in Ocean Grove NJ, where they are rebuilding the pier...

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5 Goofy Space Mishaps - I really like the Skylab prank where Owen Garriott brought recordings of his wife and made NASA think she had somehow been a stowaway up there... Just watched the new Matrix film - very good. Enjoyable embrace of and trying to fix and build up some of the goofier parts of the earlier films loose-ends.

So much of it is working on several narrative layers at once, especially the metaphors for celebrating the trans journey.

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What today's WFH life would have looked like on Mac OS9
(more background here )

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A Dr talks about giving up medical practice after being assaulted by QAnon-addled idiots.

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Was doing some therapy-related thinking and came up with some stuff that feels new to me - I always like when I can find what seems to be some root explanation between different idiosyncratic aspects of my character...

1. My dad's death (just after I started high school) was a loss, but I think the real trauma of it was less about the death and more about the debilitating illness before: namely the lesson of how awful it is to be helpless to help loved ones.

2. On to hugs. I dig greeting and farewell hugs with family and friends, and of course an amorous embrace is always laden with lovely potential. But I think reassuring, consoling hugs land differently for me than some people. Other people seem to groove on a feeling of "look I'm here for you, everything's going to be ok" whereas for me the message is "welp, I'm helpless to materially fix this, but at least we're in this together." So I'm happy to provide comforting hugs as needed, but don't quite intuit why they work for people or want them for myself when I'm in a rough state.

3. And on to romance in general. For a long while I've seen romance as a mix of (mutual) admiration and (mutual) responsibility. But now I can see that the end goal of the responsibility is to make the other person into as fulfilled a person as they can be. So the loving gesture and support in general are means to that goal, and not ends unto themselves. (But I think other people are more into the loving gesture for its own sake...as one old paramour put it "I just want a lover who'll make me chicken soup when I'm sick.")

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a redwood will never return to its roots, never crawl back into its seed. you cannot be what you were at the beginning. you can only move towards the end.

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(I might have Posted this "Pictures for Sad Children" Star Trek Next Generation empathy, "this is her... Super-Power" but I wanted to have it better show up in my archive search.) Am I just an Old, or are point-of-sale units really bad at consistently indicating "if you're going to tap your card on phone, tap here ->"? It feels like guess work where I'm just randomly hitting my phone on random parts around the screen and hoping- rather undignified - and not always sure if the tap is available at all...

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Did you know: the color magenta does not exist. Or I think it's more fair to say: most colors do not correspond to simple single wavelengths of light. (This reminds me of Donald Hoffman on Harris' podcast - I think he extrapolates too much from our inability to directly percieve "reality" but still.)
--Grinchy, wealthy universities have a change of heart and start making PILOT payments in City Hall Christmas fable Trumps Challenge Coin, LOL, you tasteless egomaniac, this is as stupid as your banana republic "have all your underlings tell you what an awesome swell dude you are" crap. Oh, plus you're a racist as hell know-nothing as well. No wonder you ditched E Pluribus Unum, you fat sad old man who can't even drink a damn glass of water.

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Advice From A 19 Year Old Girl & Software Developer. " most hardworking, yet most relaxed" sound like good complementary life goals.

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Just watched "Doctor Strange" (REALLY REALLY MINOR SPOILERS AHOY) Netflix movies are so low rent sometimes, I'm kind of surprised to see some of those Marvel films and Star Wars there... Anyway, REALLY liked the Inception and Groundhog's Day pieces.

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Oh and the Matrix

advent day 23

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Look Who's Back A German Ali G explortation of various Trumpian populist formulas. Kinda brilliant.
advent day 23

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Seems like 2014 was a pretty good year for videos of people doing things:

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http://kirkdev.blogspot.com/2014/12/modern-web-tricks.html - I did a run down of all the techie stuff I did just for the launching page of my advent calendar...

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A few years ago I guess I wrote these, than totally forgot about them:

#xmasfail

I saw mommy shaking Santa Claus' hand / but in a meaningful way

Jingle bells / jingle bells / jingle at least most of the way

Frosty / the Snowman / was inert

Rudolph / the damp-nosed reindeer / had a rather damp nose

Bittersweet contentment to the world!

O the weather outside is frightful / I hope the g*****n furnace guy gets here soon

I'm dreaming / of a ... Christmas / without so many wolves in it

Silent night / shut up.

It came upon the midnight overcast

I'll be home for Christmas / that's what "house arrest" means

advent day 23
advent day 23

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On a Small Planet

I did not tell Uncle and Aunt about all of my visits to Aalam-104729. Or of the many things that I saw. Once, I hovered invisibly in a city that arched over a hill. The planet was one of a dozen orbiting an ordinary star, the smallest planet in the system. It was a quiet world. Oceans and wind made scarily a sound. People spoke to one another only in whispers. I floated above the city and looked down at its streets and inhabitants. Corners of buildings rusted in the air, billows of steam rose from underground canals. Through throngs of creatures moving this way and that, as creatures do in their cities, I spotted two men passing each other on a crowded walkway. Complete strangers. In the eight million beings living in the city, these two had never met before, never chanced to find themselves in the same place at the same time. A common enough occurrence in a city of millions. And as these two strangers moved past, they greeted each other, just a simple greeting. A remark about the sun in the sky. One of them said something else to the other, they exchanged smiles, and then the moment was gone. What an extraordinary event! No one noticed but me. What an extraordinary event! Two mean who had never seen each other before and would not likely see each other again. But their sincerity and sweetness, their sharing an instant in a fleeting life. It was almost as if a secret had passed between them. Was this some kind of love? I wanted to follow them, to touch them, to tell them of my happiness. I wanted to whisper to them: "This is it, this is it."

Mr g is kind of a creation myth - God wanders the void with his Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva (kind of representing a spirit of science and rationality and one of religious feeling, respectively) and creates a universe. It's a creation myth very in tune with our observations of the history and construction of the universe, a kind of plausible tale of a compassionate yet non-interventionist God, a watchmaker who set things in motion, things that have unfortunate side effects of suffering and pain as an inevitable result of the original parameters. It's a lovely book.

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"A code review of Eric Chahi's "Another World" - a close look via reverse engineering. http://t.co/f2HJ8fWp #retro #fascinating"
--http://twitter.com/blakespot
--Databending in the game "Carmegeddon" -- stretching what happens when your car gets in a collission 'til ludicrous virtual sculpture results. Sorry for the sound, it really stinks, but still.

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http://www.slate.com/id/2239252/ - I love the Swedish Christmas Tradition of Donald Duck cartoons...

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http://www.slate.com/id/2278923/ - Americans exaggerate their church attendance- side effect of a conflating of morality and religion. Duh.

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This Rex Ryan foot fetish thing is hilarious, but I respect him more- if you know what you like, and have someone to share it with, good on ya! I mean they've been married 23 years-anyone who hasn't been in a relationship for more than say, a decade should back off.

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Step 1. rally your troops to block health care (on behalf of the deep-pocketed insurance industry)
Step 2. ensuring narrowest vote margins
Step 3. accuse opponents of making "sweetheart deals" to get over the blockage
Step 4. profit?

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http://www.slate.com/id/2239252/ - Swedes have a tradition of Christmas Eve Donald Duck cartoons, and they take it seriously. I like that.

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What's worse: Having pubic hair in your kung pao chicken, or having kung pao chicken in your pubic hair?

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I used to feel guilty that in high school, my mom would run the snowblower w/ me warm inside. Turns out she just digs powered equipment...

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I never took hallucinogenic drugs because I never wanted my consciousness expanded one unnecessary iota.

Ah New Jersey.

Remind me to never, ever trust my GPS for plotting the route from Boston to here. Yes, the George Washington Bridge gives you a nice view of Manhattan, and fills me with nostalgia for when my mom was living on the island (and I had my own little microstudio apartment - wah) but trying to cut through just after rush hour, not so much.

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Video of the Moment

--Alas, a little too good to be true (though I guess in response to a real event), it's John Clarke and Bryan Dawe on the 7.30 Report about how "the front fell off". Still I admire the "Sportscenter" like pacing of it.

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Quote of the Moment

I am not going back to that filthy decade without some Purell!

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Link of the Moment
Obama vs Putin vs Clinton '93: the shirtless battle.

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Ah New Jersey, land of cheap, no-self-serve gas....

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Even when not armed, the house security system announces every open door as "fault", eg "fault: front door" Couldn't it just say 'open'?

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Yesterday I learned the value of windshield wiper fluid... ya don't miss it 'til it's gone. Or possibly frozen.

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Hm. Maybe I should replace my PC desktop with one of my laptops. With an external monitor and kbd, I think this would be a better system.

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Hard to remember that the rest of the world isn't stopped with you when you're on vacation. On the road for Christmas, minimal update.

So one final concept from Cathcart and Klein's "Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes" that I've been milking so much this week... they quote William James, who was convinced that the feeling of cosmic knowledge that being on nitrous oxide provided might be worth investigating... but he would always forget those deep thoughts on the come-down. So he decided to write things down, and typical of what he was coming up up with was:

"Everything has a Petroleumlike smell!"

Deep, man. The thing was, he couldn't be quite sure if it was just the normal, non-high James who was deaf and blind to these cosmic truths, or if it was the high James who was just babbling.

I couldn't too many references to the Petroleumlike observation, but I did find bits like this:

What's mistake but a kind of take?
What's nausea but a kind of -ausea?
Sober, drunk, -unk , astonishment. . . .
Agreement--disagreement!!
Emotion--motion!!! . . .
Reconciliation of opposites; sober, drunk, all the same!
Good and evil reconciled in a laugh!
It escapes, it escapes!
But--
What escapes, WHAT escapes?

...well, as free poetry goes I've heard worse.

I've started semi-deliberately using phrases like "I hear you" and "I get what you're saying" as a response during discussions, especially ones that have a point of contention. And really, I do try to get the persective of the person I might be disagreeing with. But I'm not sure if its perceived as a legitimate reassurance and validation, or just a sort of rheotorical trick.

What do you think? Is using that kind of language actually useful in expressing viewpoint empathy, or does it ring too hollow?

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RetroGeekChic of the Moment
The same guy who did Metroid Cubed and other lovely extensions of old Nintendo ROM data has done Hyrule Planetoids. (Thanks Nick B)

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Video of the Moment
Slate had an interesting little bit of clips called The Power and the Glory of the Rocky Montage. I decided to commemorate Stallone's Awesome One-Handed-Pushup Ability in Animated GIF form. (A smaller version of which I'll add to the small gif cinema.)

South Park has a great montage parody...I hadn't realized it kind of started with Rocky. It's interesting how it pays lip service to, but covers up, the sheer monotony and drudgery of putting in the time to get good at nearly anything...

--I know this is tragically naive of me, but it would be nice if any one on team had half the devotion of a typical fan. (Conversely, I know Boston buys from a lot of less rich team, but still... damn it, Damon would never have become this kind of star on a lesser team or if he had always been a clean-shaven Yankee droid.)

I can't decide whether to be amused or annoyed by the increasing use of voice speedup technologies in radio advertisements, jamming together disclaimers and contest rules, digitally removing pauses and otherwise speeding up the voice without making it sound like a chipmunk. Actually, whenever I hear that I always have this urge (which I often act on, as long as I'm alone in the car) to respond with a babbling stream of nonsense of my own.

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Videos of the Moment
Mega64 has some amusing realworld video game reenacments, kind of like Trigger Happy TV on Comedy Central, but with video games. Check out the one called "Trailer" for a sample...some of them only gamers will understand, but I really loved "Tetris", how the L block wants to settle in to various objects.

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Scary News of the Moment
Oy...the real key to global warming becoming an "extinction level event" might be a chain reaction as methane frozen into the Arctic tundra gets unlocked by global warming, thus causing...more global warming. It's happened before a long while back:

More than 94 percent of the marine species present in the fossil record disappeared suddenly as oxygen levels plummeted and life teetered on the verge of extinction. Over the ensuing 500,000 years, a few species struggled to gain a foothold in the hostile environment. It took 20 million to 30 million years for even rudimentary coral reefs to re-establish themselves and for forests to regrow. In some areas, it took more than 100 million years for ecosystems to reach their former healthy diversity.

And supposedly our CO2 emissions might be kind of like the volcano eruptions that happened before, and we could see this happen over the next 100 years or less. So skeptics, whaddya say to this? Something reassuring I hope. I do think that people warning about this should use another term than "methane burps", which is different than the more mild threat posed by cow "methane farts", and also different from another phenomenon that happens around water. (thanks, I think, Bill)

You know, I used to read about "terraforming" other planets, making them human-inhatible through massive engineering projects. Scary to think that we might have to try something like that, in real time, on our own world...I don't know if our smarts, willpower, and technology base is up to it.

Robot Warrior Bad Guys and Link of the Moment

--Bad Guys from "Robotto Keiji". The Henshin Hall of Fame has a lot of information and pictures from these Japanese fighting shows.

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Quote of the Moment

What if it is for life's sake that we must die? In truth we are not individuals; and it is because we think ourselves such that death seems unforgivable. We are temporary organs of the race, cells in the body of life; we die and drop away that life may remain young and strong. If we were to live forever, growth would be stifled, and youth would find no room on earth. Death, like style, is the removal of rubbish, the circumcision of the superfluous. In the midst of death life renews itself immortally.

Hadn't heard much about him or his wife 'til my old highschool friend Tom K. mentioned scoring a collection of his works at some kind of garage sale. His Foundation has a website.

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Bad News of the Moment
So, obviously, the elevated terrorist threat level is on everyone's mind. I keep finding myself heading over to Drudge Report...new news really does show up there more quickly, it was talking about the California Quake about 15 minutes before anyone else online.

They linked to this rather stark and scary story from the LA Times via azcentral.com.

So, yeah, I'm a bit nervous. I think the chance of something hurting me or my loved ones is small, of suffering the economic impact along with everyone else moderate. I think our country is really resilient, though. We survive stuff all the time, earthquakes, blackouts, republican administrations...I think even our economy is made of pretty tough stuff. Although it's hard to figure how 9-11 might have slowed the economic recovery over the last 2 years, we did have a bounce back once the shock wore off.

You wonder about "chatter". I know one of the troubling things of the moment is that there are multiple sources of intelligence, but when you hear about the chatter...the fact that they don't get much specific info makes me think either they're seeing encrypted stuff they can't crack (or don't have the wiretapping options I was assuming that they do) or that it's stuff in public forums, like websites. And if it is websites...well, there's going to be a ton of wishful thinking with that stuff. And they downplay the Saddam connection, but that has to tie in to that kind of evil hope chattering.

Feh. In all, I still come back to the idea that radical religous belief and nationalist/pan-nationalist sentiment is a serious problem.

(Followup: sometimes when I want some positive spin on current events in general, I look to the conservatives; Christopher Hitchens' Slate piece on Qaddafi (Kadaffi, Ghadaffi, Daffy Duck, whatever) has a side note putting Osama Bin out of it and describing a generally better situation. That doesn't make the current terrorist threat go away, still it's vaguely comforting to read.)

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Stupid Question of the Moment
The Boston Bruins aren't doing so well. They say that their record is 2-7-5-1 for their last 15 games Errr, does anyone know what that "1" means? Win, Loss, Tie, ????

Update: googling around, maybe it's some kind of "overtime loss" record? Weird.

Hey, did we finally pass the shortest day of the year? Yay!

• Mo's a decendent of Rebecca Nurse, one of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials. Cool, huh?
• This Salon article on Ted Nugent was really something, though I don't think the idea that anyone can get rich just by working for really holds up.
• The Programmers' Stone, "to recapture, explore and celebrate the Art of Computer Programming."
• I need to catch up with Small Stories, some nice little slice of life comics.
• $oy = "vey"; Perl is Internet Yiddish, tracing the similarites between the spoken dialect and my favorite language to do interesting stuff on the Web with.
• Mario 64 was a brilliant N64 game, putting the old 8-bit hero and his world into 3D, here's a page with lots of glitches and odd things to try.
• KurzweilAI.net has lots of articles about the technological possibilities for the future, from machine intelligence to the possibility of immortality.
• "The first requisite for immortality is death."--Stanislaw Lem. I'm not sure what all that means, but it sure sounds good.
• Speaking of immortality, a slashdot comment on the Death of Lord British in the shared universe of Ultima Online. He was supposed to be invulnerable but there was a technical goof. You can get a little more information but I wasn't able to find the screenshots.
• Hmm, I need to check up on the final results of the 5K contest as well, where people write as much style and functionality as possible in a tiny amount of code.

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Image and Band Name of the Moment
This is a bumper sticker on a car at work. The missing word is "Rapto", and it's saying when the Rapture happens this car will be without a driver...but I think "Sin Conductor" would be a pretty good name for a band, and oddly has pretty much the opposite meaning as intended in the original Spanish. Link of the Moment
It's Hot Death Uno! (PG13.) It's pretty much regular Uno, but with extra cards like "Glastnost", "The Spreader", and "Holy Defender". I saw the Windows Version of this game at the frontdesk of Tufts' Eaton computer lab. It hasn't aged well, cards sometimes fly a bit faster than you can see them. Still, the oponents are well done, with a bit of trash talking thrown in. It'd be cool to have this on a color Palm Pilot.

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Quote of the Moment

Life is like a box of chocolates, a cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift no one ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this mostly undefinable whipped mint crap, mindlessly wolfed down when there's nothing else to eat during the game. Sure, once in a while you get a peanut butter cup or an English toffee, but it's gone too soon and the taste is fleeting. In the end you're left with nothing but broken bits of hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts, which if you are desperate enough to eat, leaves nothing but useless brown paper wrappers.

Actually, I like boxes of chocolate.