Today a trailer for a documentary film about a band I have never heard of reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to write down. Since the thought was too long to fit into twitter. Here we go. Continue reading »
Dark Souls is the mildly sadistic sequel to the completely sadistic Japanese action RPG Demon’s Souls. I gave up on the latter game a couple of years ago after encountering the second one hit kill boss in the game. The first one hit kill boss in the game was placed at the end of the tutorial, which gives you an idea of what these games are like. Continue reading »
For the past year or so I have been bitching to my friends about how the free Oblivion mod “Nehrim” was more expansive, more epic, and generally more impressive than any game Bethesda had ever made. Continue reading »
DEER ELF AMBASSEDOR:
SORY ABOUT THE DEAD GARDS AT YOUR PARTY BUT I NEEDED A THING FOR A MISHUN. MY KONTACT SAID TO BE SNEAKY BUT I HAD BIG ARMOR SO I WAS LOUD SO I HAD TO KILL EVERYONE SORRY.
LOVE,
KRRRNK THE ORC
PS: THANKS FOR THE WINE IT WAS REELY YUMI.
PPS: SORRY AGAIN ABOUT THE GARDS.
This one is so easy it’s almost cheating. But I had to put something here so that we didn’t lead the front page with the stupid Internet people anymore. So here we go. This scheme is based on a recipe I have stolen from Marcella Hazan. Buy her book, it’s in there. But I’ve adjusted the flow a bit to make it easier to follow. For me.
Read the comments on this page.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/four-star-vegetarian-dishes-from-eleven-madison-park/
Tell me I’m wrong. For the record, comment 25 was the one that put me over the edge. There is no more foul being in the world than a vegetarian who is also a picky eater.
One key to enjoying the telescope hobby is to know how to set up and tear down your equipment quickly. This is especially true around Pittsburgh where the weather can change only instantly from perfect to disastrous. Over the past couple of months I have developed a reasonably systematic routine in the deployment of the telescope. With it I can set up my full video rig with automatic pointing and tracking in about 20 minutes. While not instantaneous, this is pretty quick, and I would say that it approaches what reasonable people can call “grab and go.” The following is my reference checklist and there is no reason in the world for anyone else to read it except to be bored. But I already wrote it down, so I might as well post it. These setup instructions will work for any of the Celestron equatorial mounts. They can work for other mounts too, but a lot of the details will be different. Continue reading »
Astronomy is an endeavor that is full of catalogs. And I don’t mean the ones that are on the Internet that are designed to separate you from your hard earned cash. For much of its history, astronomers did little else than catalog what was in the sky. Before the telescope, this meant just what you could see with your eyeballs: the brighter stars, the planets, the moon, sun, and their various activities and relationships. With the advent of the telescope, more larger and more elaborate lists of esoteric objects could be created. The most famous of these was the one created by the French astronomer Charles Messier. Continue reading »
The bike computer that came with the new blue bike in July is reading 385 miles. For some perspective, in the last few years, I doubt I’ve ever had a six month season go by where I rode much more than 400 miles. The six months that I had the Surly, according to the computer on that bike, I rode the thing 322 miles. It’s possible that I have an extra (say) 50 or 60 on that bike because the computer could have been broken or not installed. But the blue bike has still gone further in 6 weeks than I usually go in six months. Every time I ride I wonder why it’s so much better. Continue reading »
“My secret hideout is a row of intricately ornamented domes hung through a willow copse. A row of beams, engraved with the figures of dancing birds, opens to an uneven core room which is filled with the scent of growing things.
Below that is the place where I write; it is decorated here and there with tiny relief carvings, and yellow light radiates from hidden skylights. My desk is in back.
An observatory is to the right. It’s a compact platform, open to the stars, and furnished with a reclining seat and an array of refractors. I’ve left stacks of hand-written notes and charts here and there. A gear-ridden orrery rests on a stand, in memory of simpler models of the universe.
Behind that is a room filled with tall carved bookshelves. Rows of textbooks on sociology and faded maps lean against terse Norse novels. The scent of ink and paper permeates the place.”
My Secret Hideout is the first iPad game by my longtime friend and acquaintance Andrew Plotkin, a.k.a. Zarf. I can’t even pretend to be objective about this – in this case, my loyalty to my friend outweighs any objectivity I might have. So I won’t try. Buy it. For $2.99, you get a neat little amusement that will generate endless descriptions of a mysterious fantasy hideout.
One of the mysteries, for me, is trying to figure out how the various inputs I can make will influence the story. Why are there six kinda of leaves? What do they do? How does combining them change the hideout? I haven’t figured any of this out yet, but I am enjoying the attempt.
It’s not a game. There are no “victory conditions” – you don’t win or lose this, you just mutate the tree and enjoy reading the results. I am glad that there’s a place in the world for things like this.
My Secret Hideout is available for iPad at the iTunes store.
