subscribe: rss (?) / by email.
I have released a small game for Librejam 202102:
grab it here.
Links:
The Forgotten History of DIY Media:
In many ways, it smacks of the kind of self-aggrandizing common to many would-be thought leaders in San Fransisco circa 1969. The same kind of techno-utopian thinking that produced Computer-Lib/Dream Machines and gave birth to the idea technology was an unmitigated force for good. (Spoiler alert: It ain’t. Technology is a tool, a force multiplyer. If it makes things better, or if it makes things worse, that is as a result of the intentions and shortcomings of the people who wield it.)
The Next Building I Plan to Bomb (ita):
In the parking lot next to the bank, Harry Edmonds saw a piece of gray scrap paper the size of a greeting card. It had blown up next to his leg and attached itself to him there. Across the top margin was some scrabby writing in purple ink. He picked it up and examined it. On the upper left-hand corner someone had scrawled the phrase THE NEXT BUILDING I PLAN TO BOMB. Harry unfolded the paper and saw an inked drawing of what appeared to be a sizable train station or some other public structure, perhaps an airport terminal. In the drawing were arched windows and front pillars but very little other supporting detail. The building looked solid, monumental, and difficult to destroy.
Having tested positive for Cov-SARS2, I am at home in isolation.
In our dreams (writes Coleridge) images represent the sensations we think they cause; we do not feel horror because we are threatened by a sphinx ; we dream a sphinx in order to explain the horror we feel. If this is so, how could a mere chronicle of its forms transmit the stupor, the exaltation, the alarm, the menace and the jubilance which made up the fabric of that dream that night? I shall attempt such a chronicle, however; perhaps the fact that the dream was composed of one single scene may remove or mitigate this essential difficulty.
DON’T PLAY EVERYTHING (OR EVERY TIME); LET SOME THINGS GO BY. SOME MUSIC JUST IMAGINED. WHAT YOU DON’T PLAY CAN BE MORE IMPORTANT THAT WHAT YOU DO.
(via The Cramped).
Fauci, Lying, Greyhound Racing, and Trump:
In the short run this approach, like other versions of lying to people for their own good — telling them, early in the pandemic, that masks were useless to them, in order to save masks for medical personnel, or that a lockdown would be only for a few weeks, in order to get people to go along with it — looks attractive, a way of saving lives. In the longer run, it risks persuading an increasing number of people that they should not believe what authority figures tell them.
game: are you a Wesnoth player? If so you need to play «Ooze mini-campaign», one of the best RPG mods out there. From Main Menu: «Add-ons» ⇒ «Connect» ⇒ «Install» and you are ready to play.
Your video card does not support any of the supported OpenGL versions.
Please update your drivers or if you have a very old or integraded GPU upgrade it.I need to buy a new laptop. Links:
My Friends the Complot Theory Believers:
How many of these people there are I have absolutely no idea. But after Snowden it has become a lot harder to argue that someone is a conspiracy nut case. After all, that’s exactly what the people who wouldn’t stop about the degree to which our lives are being spied on were labelled as. And then Edward Snowden proved them all right, and in fact, in many cases showed that things were much worse than even the most die hard alu-foil wearing mad hatter had predicated.
There wasn’t a binary compartmentalization between books (real) and mundane life (fake), there was some kind of more complex thing going on where I was conditioned to let reality slide out of focus for my intellect so that I could implement a Pass As Normal procedure.
Guido Gozzano, Le golose:
Io sono innamorato di tutte le signore
che mangiano le paste nelle confetterie.
Leo Tolstoj, The Cutting of the Forest (Рубка леса / Il taglio del bosco / Une Coupe en forêt):
I could discern the green gun-carriages and caissons, the brass of the ordnance, covered by a misty dampness, the familiar forms of my soldiers, and the bay horses, which I had involuntarily learned to know down to their minutest details, and the rows of the infantry, with their sparkling bayonets, knapsacks, wad-hooks, and kettles over their backs.
<brewton> we had an evacuation preparation notice about 2.5 hours ago
<brewton> fire seems contained now, probably won't have to evac
<brewton> just unloaded my car, will unpack in the morning
<brewton> funny - I've been trying to get rid of stuff for months but
I managed to decide what I wanted to keep from burning within
about 20 minutesI have received this beautiful letter from abroad:
Corresponding on paper is always cosy, if you want to receive an envelope from Italy, contact me.
Links:
A small but tricky logical puzzle
You enter the supply store and the shopkeeper points you to a cage in which there are a dozen chicks. He tells you that half of them are male, half are female, and to help yourself. You ask for assistance, and the shopkeeper offers to help. He says that you can bring any set of chicks to him and he will tell you how many males are in that batch (without individually identifying any of them; just telling you the count of males in that set). What strategy should you employ to efficiently obtain a pair of chicks (one male, and one female) using the smallest number of identification events?
I picked the wrong answer.
The Paris Review’ habla en español, four marvellous interviews with Spanish-speaking writers. Here a bit with Borges:
P.: ¿Diría usted que en sus cuentos ha intentado crear una forma híbrida entre el relato breve y el ensayo?
R.: Sí, y lo he hecho a propósito. El primero en decírmelo fue Bioy Casares: mis relatos breves estaban a mitad de camino entre el ensayo y el cuento.
P.: ¿Lo hizo usted en parte para compensar la timidez que le producía el hecho de escribir narrativa?
R.: Sí, es posible. Sí, porque, en la actualidad, o por lo menos ahora mismo, he empezado a escribir una serie de cuentos sobre los arrabales de Buenos Aires que son relatos puros. Nada tienen de ensayo, ni siquiera de poesía. La historia se relata de manera directa, y son cuentos que, en cierto sentido, resultan tristes, tal vez terribles. Los escribo siempre adoptando un tono mesurado. Los cuentan personas que también viven en los arrabales y a las que apenas se les entiende. Tal vez sean tragedias, pero esas personas no lo ven así. Se limitan a contar la historia, y creo que el lector tiene la sensación de que lo que se relata tiene mayor profundidad de la aparente. Nunca se habla de los sentimientos de los personajes. La idea de que uno debe conocer a un personaje por sus palabras y sus actos, sin meterse dentro de su cabeza ni contar lo que piensa, la aprendí gracias a las sagas del nórdico antiguo.
Water closet, a whimsical, challenging and fun puzzler/platformer.
<eb0t> there are only 2 types of people.....people who backup and people
who have not yet had a devastating life changing failureI have done some cluster analysis on the 2020 Haskell survey. Like it? Share!
Nobel prize for UN world food programme – not all that glitters is gold
In the overall ranking, the World Food Programme scored lowest out of all the organisations analysed. For example, the number of employees appears to be overblown: according to Easterly and Pfutze, about $30,000 in aid were paid out per staff member, which is rather low: Norway and Italy distribute more than $ 10 million per staff member – this is more than 330 times as much.
I have also set up an IRC server for the first time in my life: first set up the server, then the services for NickServ & friends, then turn on all the modules that are customary in this day and age… if self-hosting is to become a thing, the install user experience needs to improve.
When the system doesn’t respond, when it doesn’t accept what you’re doing—and most of the time it won’t—you have a chance to become self-reliant and create your own system. There will always be periods of solitude and loneliness, but you must have the courage to follow your own path. Cleverness on the terrain is the most important trait of a filmmaker.
There’s a lot of talk in journalism today about bias, with the assumption being that reporters who believe something can’t write about it fairly.
Of course, there is some truth to that idea — we would not let our education reporter advocate for school choice, for example. But it’s not realistic to believe that journalists are robots without opinions. We have lives and experiences that make our reporting richer, provided we remain vigilant about keeping our opinions out of the stories we publish.
The project happened because of Amy’s quest to provide a bigger and broader life for her daughter than society told her was possible. Did she come to this project with preconceived notions? Probably, just like the ones we all hold. Did it damage the integrity of her reporting? Just the opposite.
Versus
Some people worry that reporters have bias. They think reporters shouldn’t write about things they care about. They worry the reporters won’t be fair.
We think writing fairly is important. But reporters are people. We all have things we care about. We think knowing a lot about the things we care about makes our writing better. We make sure not to write our opinions though.
We started writing this story because Amy cares about it. She cares because it affects her family. We don’t think caring makes the story less fair. We think caring makes it better.
La vendetta delle lumache assassine:
Ma poverine cosa, poverine chi, poverino quel minchia dell’allevatore, poverino! Non era tutto perfettamente in linea con Genesi 9,3? Non era quindi permesso, anzi a ben guardare comandato, buttare le lumache vive nell’acqua bollente? Che poi se le lumache non ti piacciono fai azione ancor più meritoria.
An unplanned picture and its story (super!):
Coming back from vacation, on the large monitor, it turns out that the first 28 out of the 30 pictures were either blurry or not well focused (as I was focusing manually), and the 29th was almost OK but still not very good. Only the last, the really last picture, was technically good and also composition-wise OK. Luck? Foresight? Don’t know, but it was worth deleting 28 pictures to get this one. One of my best night shots, despite being so unprepared…
By this time next week maybe we’ll know who the winner is. I sure hope we will. The waiting might be over after four endless years. I find it hard to stop thinking about it.
Today I needed an escape. So I took my camera outside into our backyard and driveway and shot some pictures of whatever I happened to find out there. It was sunny and warm, but not too sunny and not too warm. Just right.
To start, here are some close-ups of a fence.
Dispatch from Flyover Country (via p1k3):
Many of our friends who grew up here now live in Brooklyn, where they are at work on “book-length narratives.” Another contingent has moved to the Bay Area and made a fortune there. Every year or so, these west-coasters travel back to Michigan and call us up for dinner or drinks, occasions they use to educate us on the inner workings of the tech industry. They refer to the companies they work for in the first person plural, a habit I have yet to acculturate to. Occasionally they lapse into the utopian, speaking of robotics ordinances and brain-computer interfaces and the mystical, labyrinthine channels of capital, conveying it all with the fervency of pioneers on a civilizing mission.
This year, I have moved to a new country two times. This sharply brings to attention the pain and cost of owning things. It is not just when carrying maximally filled suitcases across airports that things are bothersome. The more things you have, the bigger a home you need, and the more effort you need to spend on cleaning things and home.
He seemed educated and discreet. I invited him into the living room. Yet I was suspicious. “Is this,” I asked, “about insurance by any chance?”
He started to laugh. I looked him over. He seemed athletic; he was tanned. “No, no, please,” and he sat down. “I rather think I can be of some use to you, with the regiment. . . .”
“What regiment? Do you mean my regiment?”
He nodded in agreement. “But don’t be alarmed, please. I’m not carrying any order for you to report for duty.”
(originale italiano: Il reggimento parte all'alba).
The abc notation community needs to find a new mailing list, since Yahoo Groups is discontinuing support.
Step one: when to vote? And on what text? Which option to include in the poll? Let’s have a look at the current discussion-tree:
150 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) [abcusers] The great Mailing List migration debate
151 r . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 14K) └─>discuss a poll about the personal preferences (PPP), was: Re: [abcusers] The great Mailing List migration debate
152 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 15K) ├─>
153 . Sep 08 To abc users gr ( 26K) │ └─>[abcusers] Proposed Poll Wording
154 . Sep 08 To abcusers ( 26K) │ ├─>
155 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 27K) │ │ ├─>
156 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 28K) │ │ │ ├─>
157 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ │ │ │ └─>
158 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 30K) │ │ │ └─>
159 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ │ │ └─>
160 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 10K) │ │ ├─>
161 . Sep 08 To Rob Lindauer ( 28K) │ │ └─>
162 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 39K) │ │ └─>
163 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 40K) │ │ └─>
164 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 46K) │ │ ├─>
165 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 47K) │ │ │ └─>
166 . Sep 09 To dev.music@fr ( 14K) │ │ └─>
167 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 16K) │ │ └─>
168 . Sep 09 To abc users gr ( 14K) │ │ ├─>
169 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 18K) │ │ │ └─>
170 . Sep 10 To abc users gr ( 30K) │ │ │ └─>
171 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 31K) │ │ │ ├─>
172 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 32K) │ │ │ │ └─>
173 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 34K) │ │ │ │ └─>
174 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ │ │ │ └─>
175 . Sep 10 To abc users gr ( 12K) │ │ │ │ └─>
176 . Sep 10 To abc users gr ( 16K) │ │ │ │ └─>[abcusers] Proposed Poll Wording, 3rd Draft
177 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ │ │ │ ├─>
178 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ │ │ │ │ └─>
179 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 12K) │ │ │ │ └─>
180 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ │ │ │ ├─>
181 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 10K) │ │ │ │ │ └─>
182 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 12K) │ │ │ │ │ └─>
183 . Sep 11 To abc users gr ( 19K) │ │ │ │ │ └─>[abcusers] Time to move on?
184 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ │ │ │ │ ├─>
185 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 17K) │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─>
186 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 18K) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
187 . Sep 11 To abc users gr ( 21K) │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─>
188 . Sep 11 To dev.music@fr ( 12K) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
189 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
190 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 14K) │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─>
191 . Sep 11 To abc users gr ( 14K) │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
192 . Sep 12 To abcusers@yah ( 10K) │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
193 . Sep 12 To abcusers@yah ( 12K) │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
194 . Sep 12 To abc users gr ( 19K) │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
195 . Sep 12 To Peter Yarens ( 20K) │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─>
196 . Sep 12 To abc users gr ( 23K) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
197 . Sep 12 To dev.music@fr ( 13K) │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>Re: [abcusers] Time to move on?
198 . Sep 12 To abc users gr ( 15K) │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
199 r . Sep 13 To abcusers@yah ( 10K) │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
200 . Sep 13 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
201 r . Sep 13 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
202 . Sep 13 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ │ │ │ │ │ └─>
203 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 12K) │ │ │ │ │ └*>RE: [abcusers] Time to move on?
204 . Sep 11 To abc users gr ( 14K) │ │ │ │ │ └─>
205 . Sep 12 To abcusers@yah ( 16K) │ │ │ │ │ └─>
206 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 14K) │ │ │ │ ├─>Re: [abcusers] Proposed Poll Wording, 3rd Draft
207 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ │ │ │ │ └─>
208 . Sep 11 To dev.music@fr ( 11K) │ │ │ │ │ └─>
209 . Sep 11 To abcusers@yah ( 14K) │ │ │ │ └─>
210 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 12K) │ │ │ └─>Re: [abcusers] Proposed Poll Wording
211 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ │ │ ├─>
212 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 16K) │ │ │ └─>
213 . Sep 09 To dev.music@fr ( 18K) │ │ └─>Re: [abcusers] Proposed Poll Wording
214 . Sep 09 To dev.music@fr ( 12K) │ │ ├─>
215 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 12K) │ │ └─>Question: Beginning the Poll Sept. 15 12:01am?, was: Re: [abcusers] Proposed Poll Wording
216 . Sep 10 To dev.music@fr ( 13K) │ │ └─>
217 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ ├*>Re: [abcusers] Proposed Poll Wording
218 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ │ └─>
219 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ ├*>
220 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ │ └─>[abcusers] What does a future solution need?: About local copies of postings
221 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ │ ├─>
222 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ │ └─>[abcusers] Re: What does a future solution need?: About local copies of postings
223 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 18K) │ │ └─>
224 . Sep 10 To abc users gr ( 23K) │ │ ├─>
225 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 12K) │ │ │ └─>
226 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ │ ├─>
227 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ │ │ ├─>
228 . Sep 10 To abc users gr ( 16K) │ │ │ └─>
229 . Sep 10 To dev.music@fr ( 14K) │ │ └─>Re: [abcusers] What does a future solution need?: About local copies of postings
230 . Sep 09 To abc users gr ( 23K) │ └*>
231 . Sep 09 To dev.music@fr ( 11K) │ ├─>
232 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ ├─>
233 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah (6.2K) │ └─>
234 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah (4.5K) │ └─>CORRECTION Re: [abcusers] Proposed Poll Wording
235 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ └─>
236 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 18K) ├─>Re: discuss a poll about the personal preferences (PPP), was: Re: [abcusers] The great Mailing List migration debate
237 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 20K) │ └─>
238 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) ├─>
239 . Sep 09 To dev.music@fr ( 17K) │ └─>
240 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) ├*>
241 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ └─>
242 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 16K) ├─>
243 . Sep 08 To abc users gr ( 21K) │ └─>
244 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 22K) │ ├─>
245 . Sep 08 To abcusers ( 28K) │ │ └─>
246 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 26K) │ └─>Re: discuss a poll about the personal preferences (PPP), was: Re: [abcusers] The great Mailing List migration debate
247 . Sep 09 To abc users gr ( 30K) │ └─>
248 . Sep 08 To abcusers@yah ( 12K) ├*>Re: discuss a poll about the personal preferences (PPP), was: Re: [abcusers] The great Mailing List migration debate
249 . Sep 08 To abcusers ( 13K) │ ├─>
250 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 15K) │ │ └─>
251 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ ├─>
252 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 15K) │ │ └─>
253 . Sep 09 To dev.music@fr ( 11K) │ ├─>
254 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ ├─>
255 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ └─>
256 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ ├─>
257 . Sep 09 To abcusers ( 14K) │ │ ├─>
258 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 17K) │ │ │ └─>
259 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ │ │ ├─>
260 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 14K) │ │ │ └─>
261 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 17K) │ │ │ └─>
262 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 11K) │ │ │ └─>[abcusers] Re: discuss a poll about the personal preferences (PPP)
263 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 15K) │ │ │ └─>
264 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 12K) │ │ │ └─>
265 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 12K) │ │ │ └─>
266 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 12K) │ │ │ ├─>Re: [abcusers] discuss a poll about the personal preferences (PPP)
267 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 16K) │ │ │ │ └─>
268 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 15K) │ │ │ └─>Re: [abcusers] Re: discuss a poll about the personal preferences (PPP)
269 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah (1.1K) │ │ └─>Freelink? Re: discuss a poll about the personal preferences (PPP), was: Re: [abcusers] The great Mailing List migration debate
270 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 13K) │ │ └─>
271 . Sep 09 To dev.music@fr ( 12K) │ └─>
272 . Sep 09 To abcusers@yah ( 12K) └*>
273 . Sep 10 To dev.music@fr ( 18K) └─>
274 . Sep 10 To abcusers@yah ( 16K) └─>Of course we haven’t settled on everything yet, but apparently the poll will happen via a Google Form (or email message, if you prefer not to use Google).
Misc: Sono una creatura, The rules for keeping a journal that improves with age.
I have played two great little titles lately, both free software:
Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, a space exploration/roguelite;
Fire & Fondness 2, a tricky puzzle game with very good production values.
Art: Yoshikata Amano / Photoessay: Pilatus.
Here’s a story of how I tried to remove a fake story marginally related to COVID-19 from Wikipedia, and, at least for now, achieved the opposite and contributed to its dissemination and perpetuation.
fawkes — image “cloaking” for personal privacy:
At a high level, Fawkes takes your personal images, and makes tiny, pixel-level changes to them that are invisible to the human eye, in a process we call image cloaking. You can then use these “cloaked” photos as you normally would, sharing them on social media, sending them to friends, printing them or displaying them on digital devices, the same way you would any other photo.
The difference, however, is that if and when someone tries to use these photos to build a facial recognition model, “cloaked” images will teach the model an highly distorted version of what makes you look like you. The cloak effect is not easily detectable, and will not cause errors in model training. However, when someone tries to identify you using an unaltered image of you (e.g. a photo taken in public), and tries to identify you, they will fail.
I have finished yet another statistics article which might be of interest to everyone who reads studies now and then: quick statistical power estimate.
Otherwise: A week with Grizzly.
Please Print (A Journaling Rant):
Yes. Print. On paper. Why? Because, unlike your app, paper has a proven track record for lasting thousands of years if the conditions are right.
After some labiorious days, I finally completed it: Who cares if I listen? A study of dodecaphonic music enjoyment.
Thanks to everyone who helped, it is an article I have wanted to write since a long time.
I Thought Stage IV Cancer Was Bad Enough:
Rilke taught us not to seek the answers but to love the questions. Good advice. Now I’m stuck in my house muttering, “Stage IV cancer during a pandemic! Could it get any—oh, never mind.”
Libertà, un racconto di Giovanni Verga:
Non importa! Ora che si avevano le mani rosse di quel sangue, bisognava versare tutto il resto. Tutti! tutti i cappelli! - Non era più la fame, le bastonate, le soperchierie che facevano ribollire la collera. Era il sangue innocente.
I spilled milk on my laptop, I had to buy a new one.
After a little experimentation, I decided that if I wanted to draw linear features, there were three characters that were best to use:
! / _. Together, I could create rudimentary lines that roughly connected together in a pseudo-vector style, even if the typewriter grid itself is basically a raster.
Aisle started out as a game which would not need the usual meta-verbs… i.e. a game with only one turn. The initial idea was: How do I make a game with only one turn interesting?
