Just an ordinary looking virtual kiosk. There are journals and blogs in it!
Journals | Blogs
Metaphor ReFantazio is the best JRPG ever and you should play it. I will definitely be writing a post about it once I finish. Atlus cooked with this one, it's so so good. I put like...30 hours into it over 3 days.
I also watched The Substance last night and that was incredible. Top tier body horror and an incredible story to boot. Horror fans are eating good these past couple years.
The fine print: to switch directions I have to fill in the right blank, clear the old blank, and then type in something outside the old blank (to indicate I'm not going to type further into the old blank).
Works better if I clear the old query first, but who can remember that?
I've decided to just recompute on every keypress and mouse click. It seemed unnecessary, but now I see that there's some benefit from the inefficiency.
I think we are going to discover long term cognitive impacts from repeat Covid infections. This country did not have the IQ points to spare. It would be so fuckin' easy to be a right wing grifter. I'm not a piece of shit so I'm not trying to exploit people for profit, but god would it be SO easy.
This is what I should have done last year when between the research for Strange Loop, daily maintenance of active projects, and implementation of new ones, code was what I only ever read or wrote about for weeks on end. By the time winter came, I was fed up with all of it. If everything works according to plan, I'm well on my way to not writing a single line of code this month.
It can all wait 'til November.
So, Elon musk is definitely gonna use Twitter to fuck with the election somehow. This is just 1 of many reasons why billionaires should not exist. Musk is fully embracing the villain arc and when the billionaire who owns an information platform is teaming with the wannabe fascist dictator...y'all should be more concerned about this it is not a joke
Ways I've previously seen text coexist with a canvas:
I'm instead using the game engine idea of a pivot. Any time I toggle into doodle mode I have to first pick a pivot from one of the characters on screen. All my drawings are relative to that pivot, and edits to text maintain pivots alongside.
Displacements to the pivot are preserved in font-derived units, so it looks "reasonable" as you resize the font.
Deleting a character deletes all drawings pivoted on it. (But there's undo.)
This took 200 lines, so not too much though it was more than I'd initially expected.
Inspired by this thread.
Blanks can be filled in either with the results of computation or with what a person typed in. Now we indicate such conflicts in two ways.
But perhaps the color choice is too strong:
Watched the USC v Ole Miss game yesterday with the fam. I don't really care about the game, I'm just there to eat, drink, and be merry. To that end, we made smoked steak with a creamy mushroom topping, smoked mashed potatoes, corn, a veggie tray, pumpkin bread, and a cookie dessert. It's always fun, everyone always brings stuff to the gatherings. It's nice to do these regularly (even if USC lost lol).
Been playing lots of Space Marine 2 lately, super fun. 2024 was a great year for PVE games with EDF6, Helldivers 2, Space Marine 2.
The sort of interaction I live for: someone wished something existed, and it gave me a great deal of pleasure to manifest it.
The panic buying of toilet paper again lol. Always buy an extra, especially when they go on sale. Then you don't have to be one of the panic buyers.
September stretched out like a lazy cat in a sunbeam, feeling like it lasted forever. In these long days, a crazy dance unfolded between the puppy and the child. It was a challenging yet fun game, like juggling flaming marshmallows without a mess.
Creatively, I retreated into my fortress of solitude. My side projects took a backseat. My energy levels seemed to have taken some time off, leaving me with just enough zest to update img now and then. It's been an introspective phase, where the usual hustle made way for a more laid-back rhythm.
Now, let's discuss the mystery surrounding the Diablo tapes. The production is taking longer than expected, feeling like a Monday morning that won't end. Am I being cleverly deceived? Only time will tell.
With all the spare time of this endless September, I indulged in reading, sleeping, and letting my mind wander. It's been a quiet rebellion against the chaos of the world outside and work.
There was also a lot of work, but I'm trying not to let it affect me too much.
October should bring more peace and tranquility, I hope. As the year comes to a close, I'm looking forward to getting away to London in December. The thought of holiday lights, busy streets, and warm tea is exciting. Here's to a refreshing October and exciting times ahead.
Hurricane Helene was devastating. I only had to deal with some downed trees and a half a day without power. Others lost everything. Whole towns are gone. This one will be one of those storms that gets remembered. It will be mentioned along with Katrina in terms of the devastation. I really feel for those affected.
And now there's the port strike going on. I already have political anxiety. It's just always something.
The LÖVE app with all its source code if anyone wants to play with it.
I finished my slides but I left in them some gaps to fill with puns, and other miscellanea. There's this one where a whole culture of people is programming entirely by multiplying fractions, y'know what would be ridiculous? If I had actual examples, or even implementations of classic functions to show the attendees. Not only that, how better would my point be made if I built enough documentation to teach people and even wrote games for it.
It has been 4 weeks now, I have vivid dreams in which I reduce the number of steps it takes my fractions to find the Fibonacci sequence, I have written 3 different implementations and sit on enough material for a whole extra talk of its own, or at least enough to bore a whole amphitheater to tears. — Have we lost the plot yet?
I thought about making another State of Fantasy TV article, but what's the point? I'll save some time. Rings of Power Season 2 - trash. House of Dragon Season 2 - also trash. Wheel of Time Season 2 - meh. As a fantasy lover, it's a damn shame seeing these amazing properties get absolutely ruined (or mishandled if I'm being generous) by incompetent fools. Every terrible adaptation, every streaming service price increase or password sharing crackdown, makes me very thankful I have a Plex server up and running. This is freedom.
I've been playing a good bit of LOTRO here lately. So glad I heard about the new legendary servers to simulate the feel of launch. Very refreshing. Got my highest character up to 41 so far and looking forward to seeing what cap is like.
In other news, hurricane Helene is going on. Mostly just rain by me but the winds are supposed to pick up later.
i saw a really vivid sunset yesterday while walking ibarra. a large streak of orange sunlight cutting across a deep ash-blue. the traffic lights sharp in that dark. today is a sunny day and i'm slightly anxious about my follow-up appointments to the doctor and my optometrist. ah, getting olde.
happy new year! i didn't do any traditional new year's rituals to mark the year like i did for the last three years. i didn't even do the animal crossing countdown. though i woke up early yesterday (because i slept early! start the year right, etc.) and wrote in my notebook. again today. i'm thinking of new wall decor. i'm thinking origami.
more and more as i get older i realize the importance of holding space for people, giving them a chance to show up. when i was young there i had more urgency to form bonds (i wonder why when i had more time then). i'm leaning into the ebb and flow of connection as the years go by. it happens or it doesn't, there are no guarantees. this is both depressing and uplifting, depending on the day. today it's uplifting: i got a postcard from a friend whom i thought i wouldn't hear from for a long while.
my friend el talked about updating their website and so i suddenly remembered mine. much has happened since my last entry. end of the year blues in full swing, my mom is in the hospital, my dog is a bit lonely in a dark house and is trying to get into his sack of kibble. what helps me: daily journalling, chats with my siblings, crying, writing letters, routines, home-mixed blackberry soda, we love katamari and animal crossing. i may start ingesting some vitamin d supplements to help a little. looking forward to the solstice.
yesterday i saw so many corgis.
mid-spring in full swing! i've been turning down a lot of event invites, but i'm really gratified that folks have been inviting me to things. also, ibarra and i have been taking a walk mid-mornings when the sun is full out and the lighting reminds me so much of childhood. i've also begun drinking afternoon tea, it doesn't interfere with my sleep patterns as much as coffee does.
been a while since i updated this! i am actually writing from my new laptop. wiped off windows and installed linux mint. stuff i am enjoying lately: scrapbook/junk journalling ASMRs (love the sound of peeling stickers), eating meals outdoors in the yard, looking at the newly-sprung flowers in the neighbourhood. i am thinking of revamping this website but mostly i think i'll be satisfied adjusting the divs.
it is very blustery outside. the wind hits the walls in a scary way, vibrating as in a flat of the hand against heavy wood. i'm organizing my old art right now, scanning doodles without really looking back or judging. i know enough that time is crucial for pulling meaning from drawings. and anyway, they are a record of a mood. most of the drawings i scanned were from 2017. i went through the wringer that year. my priorities in an image changed somewhat.
my computer crashed last september and it's only now that i restored it. i can believe that i actually managed to go a month without my desktop, but then i was moving between tablet and my brother's laptop, so it was fine. what happened in october so far? i turned 35. i cleaned out the yard for the winter.
this html journal is part of 
°˖✧
Sabi nila
Ang di tumaya ay talo
Konting diskarte lang kailangan
Pero hindi pa rin sapat
Sa pagtitimpi ng kalooban.
Nanalo ako ng lotto
Ng milyong milyong dalangin
Kulang sa indulgencia
Para sa walang delikadesa.
Kinakati akong magdasal
Parang nilalanggam
Nabuhay yung Santo Niño
Ng alas tres ng madaling umaga
Ngunit walang nakaimik, walang nagising.
Itataya ko na lahat,
Kahit butas ng karayom papasukin ko.
Pagkalipas nitong lahat
Magkita muli tayo sa kabilang dako.
I'm going to try something new this month, a long-form, highly detailed journal, which chronicles the projects I've done, but also things I am interested in, what I've read, etc. I share a lot of this stuff on Mastodon, but it's a shame that it isn't also present on my website. These thoughts will now live here too. Here we go!
SAILING. Where's Pino now? We are anchored on Galiano Island, comfortably nested in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. We spent time in Melanie Cove earlier this month too. We wanted a taste of summer weather, we got it. Some days were very warm, too warm to hike. Pino will be returning to the Victoria docks in the fall, I look forward to it. I really miss using our sewing machine, I have many projects in mind!
I started to transcribe the entries of the Victoria to Sitka logbook digitally, I've already published the first two weeks. As promised, the log features many silly doodles. Silly doodles are my lifeblood. People who have already read through the log told me how much they liked the black-headed gull syndicate, I am glad of it, it was a recurring joke on that trip. Gulls on logs were a common, and welcome sight. I have many more weeks to transcribe, it will take a long while to go through it all!
ART. I've been doodling one of my older OCs Shane "Shock" Evans a lot. I used Shane when roleplaying with a friend in the pokemon universe. I'd love to "recycle" this character into another story, albeit with some improvements, because his current personality requires some considerable finessing. I become very attached to my OCs. I always end up reusing them in other projects, although sometimes they're so different that it is impossible to know who they stemmed from. Lupen, from my story wiktopher, actually shares Shane's haircut (although Shane wore it first), but they're nothing alike.
BOOKS. Earlier this month, I finished reading Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I really enjoyed it, while being familiar with the character — I think most of the English speaking world is — it was my first time reading any of his stories. I love Watson’s constant amazement of Holmes’s observation and deducting skills. “My dear Holmes!” He’d often say, awestruck, after hearing Holmes detail the life a client he’d just met with great accuracy. I recommend it, although the fact that he casually takes cocaine was a bit jarring. Taking cocaine was a "hip" thing to do in 19th century England, but mostly because it wasn't well understood. When the dangers of cocaine became known, Arthur C. D. adapted the story, with Watson helping to wean Holmes off the drug. I love that he didn't double down on his character's use of the drug. The author used words that were at times surprising, like saying "he ejaculated" after a character speaks in a sudden manner. The definition of the word when used with speech reads like this: "To throw out, as an exclamation; to utter by a brief and sudden impulse; as, to ejaculate a prayer." Using it to illustrate something said swifty and suddenly is brilliant, I love the image that it summons in my mind(not the one you're thinking of, you silly rabbit). Unfortunately, its use for anything other than "ejecting semen" will forever be strange in modern times.
I am still reading through Don Norman's book The Design of Everyday Things. I've become more observant, and critical, of the objects around me. It is a wonder that so many terrible products end up in people's hands. I learned about The Toyota Way, which is a set of principles that focuses on reducing waste, increasing productivity, and maintaining a high-quality standard, such as Muda (無駄) and jidoka (自働化). I created a page on my website named good enough arithmetic, coined by Don, to remind myself that precision isn't always necessary. When I shared my notes on Mastodon, someone linked an amazing blog post on how to use your hand as a measuring device to take approximate measurements. I LOVE that idea! I included some fun ASCII art in the documentation to break the monotony. Drawing hands in ASCII was not easy, but it was fun to try! The book is dry at times, but the lessons are invaluable.
As a last mention of books, I will say that I've been reading Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary aloud to Devine every night. The casual format makes it difficult to stop, we are enjoying it so far, although Ryland Grace, the main character, sounds and behaves exactly like the star of Weir's other book Mark Watney (The Martian). I suspect that he injects a lot of himself into his characters.
RABBITS. I've got rabbits on the brain. Last August we went walking on a trail on Cortes Island with our friends Rik & Kay, they sent me photos from that walk, which of course, ended up becoming part of the wunderland rabbits project. I am especially pleased with this one. Rabbits in the ferns!
What I am most happy about is that I found another way to do the dithering. I used to have a local copy of Dither-it, and used the Atskinson algorithm to get the look I wanted, but when I switched from vincent to obi I forgot to clone the repository, when I was working on this picture I didn't have good enough cell coverage to download it. I ended up toying with Krita, and found an option under Filter>Artistic named Index Colors, which does EXACTLY what I want! I can change the colors under Ramps, and the results are just as good as those produced when using Dither-it. Of course, Dither-it is a really neat tool and I will continue to recommend it, but it is neat that Krita can produce similar results(I haven't found an equivalent in Gimp).
Also, maybe it is a bit too early to announce it, but in rabbit-related news I registered a new domain named RabbitWaves for a very special project. The site doesn't have much on it yet, it will soon!
MUSIC. Voidxwitch released their new single The Beast of the Black Hill and it is excellent! This song is dominating my life, I cannot persuade it to leave my head. Give it a listen!
Falling in Reverse's Prequel is also highly addictive. As on the commenters on YouTube so rightly said, "Falling In Reverse is no longer a band, they are an experience."
TRICKS N THINGS. I learned that it was possible to use the terminal as a calculator this month. I really wish I had learned this before! I am constantly doing conversions, being able to do it via the command line simplifies thing! Of course, one cannot just type equations in the terminal, it is necessary to summon bc first. BC was already installed on Manjaro, handy!
CALL TO ACTION. As you may have heard, Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, was arrested by Danish police. "Danish authorities claim that the arrest was made due to an international arrest warrant issued by Japan, related to his anti-whaling campaigns in the Antarctic more than a decade ago. Paul faces the possibility of extradition to Japan, where he could spend the rest of his life in prison." Protection nature ought not to be a crime. If you can spare some time, sign this petition.
Also, if you can, buy prints/or commmission a human artist that you like. With the use of AI becoming ubiquitous, they need your support right now, more than ever.
ARTICLES I READ AND LIKED
QUOTEThe productivity myth suggests that anything we spend time on is up for automation — that any time we spend can and should be freed up for the sake of having even more time for other activities or pursuits — which can also be automated. The importance and value of thinking about our work and why we do it is waved away as a distraction. The goal of writing, this myth suggests, is filling a page rather than the process of thought that a completed page represents.
Sourced from Challenging the myths of generative AI. I thought this was worth sharing, especially considering what has happened with Nanowrimo last month.
GREAT WEBSITES
Super behind on updates! Honey harvests, new friends, business ideas in motion...definitely staying busy! I was just watching Youtube and is shit just crazy this year? I feel like normalizing criminal women turned social media influencers is a thing that happened this year. The Gypsy Rose show, now that chick who pretended to be german and scammed people as seen on that netflix show is now on Dancing with the Stars...interesting. And then there's the girl who went viral for sharing her blowjob techniques and now has a reality show, which kinda sounds like a plotline straight from Idiocracy. Overdone reference I know, but come on... As usual politics is a complete shitshow. The fact that the race is even close...is a scathing indictment of the character of the American people. This world is cuckoo bananas and many days I feel like the alien on a strange planet.
It looks like I care about always making the styling very transparent, so it's possible in principle to guess what characters one needs to type to copy the look of something one sees on screen. So the style directives will never be hidden.
There are 2 kinds of lines here:
Planned:
Inspirations:
