2025-11-17 a playlist to romanticize stack shuffling - Devine Lu Linvega's journal
Dogwood, camellia, hazel, jasmin, hellebore, snowdrop, holy. Look! We're ready too. Musty from three seasons tucked away in boxes, winter sweaters, socks, arm warmers, scarves, tuques are unearthed and laid out to breath. Away and to the back of the pantry with the summer spices, a cup of lapsang souchong, cozy beside the crackling woodstove after a stiff walk through that moist seasonal haze marking the beginning of the year's quiet slip toward longer nights.
Despite constant maintenance and cajoling, my X250 has struggled waking in the morning, until this week, when it no longer turned on. I would normally dig deeper into the issue, had I had more time, but I have a few imminent appointments to which I simply can't present myself without a working system. To the pleasure of every stage technician to whom I've asked for a VGA to HDMI converter, I have found myself a used T580.
2025-11-02 A spot of grass-touching - Apropos of nothing
October started out with horrid weather, only to look more like early June by the end. I added half a page to the story started this summer, which is more than in September at least. Otherwise spent most of my time coding; so far with little to show for it. Also cleaning up the website, to make room for fresh writing. Been planning that all year, it just didn't work out as expected.
More importantly, I managed to touch grass in a big way. Not far from where we live, environmental activists managed to secure legal protections for a little natural area. It's in a corner of the city that's been heavily developed in recent years, so that's a win. Took us half a year to make the trip at long last, but it was so worth it. Had superb weather, and out there strangers greet each other. We even spotted a tiny lizard: another win.
(I mean, seriously? Even the Communists wouldn't touch the city's green belt. Partly because it acted as a buffer between the factories out on the edge and the residential areas, but also because even they weren't far enough gone to leave all the polenizers without a home. RIP wheat fields.)
Saw a couple of movies on TV, too: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (for the first time) and Serenity (for the second time). Suffice to say, the Firefly franchise now has a new fan: mom. Turns out we still know how to talk about smart movies.
Last but not least, guess this site now has a section about Linux, only a quarter century since I first installed it. And did I mention my new fan? It's good to see my sci-fi writing appreciated for a change. The money's going to help, too.
P.S. Be right back, helping mom make more jam. Quince this time.
2025-10-28 Cozy. - a
The boat is back on the Victoria docks, and Devine & I are visiting our families out east. We spend our days preparing meals for more mouths than we are used to, having long conversations over warm drinks, talking long walks with short pauses at the local calisthenics park, and working inbetween it all. HundredRabbits is a juror for the Rhizome media arts 2025 Microgrants, and so we have been busy reading through hundreds of applications. It is enlightening to be on the other side of this process.
HEALTH. I can do about 5 pull-ups right now, but still only 1 from a fully extended position. I can do 6 when I have a horizontal grip on the halyards setup on Pino's bow. The ropes being a 1/2 inch thick makes for good grip, I don't have this kid of grip strength from a horizontal bar, especially if I have to stand on my tippy toes to reach it.
I'd love to get into kickboxing, to find an affordable class that I can participate in for the winter, but they are expensive. I know I can train outside of that context, but I'd really like an activity that involves other people. I spent a lot of time on my own, I really need to move and to get out of my own head.
ART. I am up to 55 drawings for punk rabbits. It is obvious now that I will not finish in time for the Hundred Rabbits studio anniversay in November — an overly-ambitious goal. I've added a few sketches of Hakazi and Dae in sketchbook(see topmost entries). I used to draw Dae as a skinny guy, but it really doesn't fit the activity level of his character. I redrew him to have the build of a climber. I haven't had a lot of time to make comics, I am sad about this and hope I find the time to complete more pages over the winter.
I am continuing work on the upcoming Playdate version of Donsol, drawing and animating sprites. Progress is good.
BOOKS. I am currently reading through classics. I read through The Outsiders, all in the same day while traveling to visit my parents. The author, Susan E. Hinton, wrote it when she was 15 year old and it was published a year later. It is a good read, with good complex characters and a lot of heart. I finished reading it with plans to continue to watch many more sunsets. I have now begun to read Madame Bovary, another classic, but it is too early to say much about it.
Aside from my solo-reading, I continue to read Middlemarch aloud to Devine.
MOVIE. Like everyone else in the English speaking world I have partaken in soda pop and was subsequently engulfed in the craze that is Kpop Demon Hunters. The premise of demons taking over the world by creating a Korean boy band is completely irresistible. I loved every bit of it. The music is well-produced, the characters are fun, the animation/expressions is just... crazy, and the story, while having a few plot holes, holds itself well. I've been listening to the soundtrack on repeat, it is addictive. I wholeheartedly believe that if demons existed and employed that same strategy to conquer us that we would all be fucked.
Been watching a lot of good horror movies lately, like The Substance, Weapons, and Together. Both The Substance and Together feature body-horror that serve the plot well(it isn't gratuitous). The Substance is horror satire, and just visually stunning, while Together is also kind of absurdist, horror/romance(a rare, but fantastic mix). Weapons features Amy Madigan(Uncle Buck), and she is just fantastic in this film. I enjoyed the format of the movie, split in parts following the same story through different characters. While being a horror film, there is a bit of humor squeezed in there which balances out the story well. It it amazing to see so many good recent horror films.
Certitude is not the test of certainty.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)
GREAT FINDS OF THE MONTH
We ought to purge the division operator from the curriculum. Let's be honest, it shipped broken, it enforce sequential evaluation where order ought not to matter. Free your notation system from the tyranny of rule, and multiply fractions in whichever order you like.
40 / 10 * 2, a kludge.
40 2/10, timeless, classic, parallel.
40 5^-1, if fractions are not your thing.
Now, don't even get me started on subtraction, get rid of that bloat, add negative numbers if you need to, but do not ever subtract.
Last weekend
I am enjoying my last weekend at home before I fly back to Poland again.
I am reading “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil” by Hannah Arendt, “Dracula” through Dracula Daily, and the Daily Stoic.
I’m not mad at all this time: since I’ve come back home,
my mood is much more stable and I don’t feel like shutting down
pretty much ever. I had the chance to go on vacation to Greece,
and it was a very nice trip. I hope more good things will follow.