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Happy Valentine！

40代初のバレンタインです。
今年もチョコレート頂きました！
有り難うございます????

さらに今日は嬉しい連絡が二つありました。
二つともまだ言えないんですが

Today Wrigley turned 6 years old! I can't believe he's lived with me for over 5.5 years. He's such a wonderful, joyful pup. Happy birthday, Wrigley Beans.

In the latest episode of their crispy-in-a-good-way podcast, Ken and Robin talk agency in the sandbox, air frying, Alphonse Bertillon, and numbers stations.

Shaenon: I started this wallpaper illustration at the beginning of the month, and now it’s a nostalgic image of the days when people could gather in groups. Ha ha, the world’s gone mad and we’re all going to die. But[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Shaenon: This is one of the more unusual fan art submissions we’ve gotten. One of the prose stories Jeff wrote as a bonus for Kickstarter backers is “You Are Jonah Yu,” a choose-your-own-adventure story starring Jonah and Nera. The story[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Shaenon: My kid told me I should only draw cats, so I made this Florida Keys-themed wallpaper for him. As usual, if you make a donation in any amount to the Skin Horse Tip Jar, or contribute any amount to[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Three-time Olympic champion Sun Yang has lodged an appeal an appeal to the Swiss federal court in an attempt to overturn his eight-year doping ban.

Posted by: icon_uk

An old, old, OLD and very silly post from our earlier incarnation back in Livejournal days!



( May the Fourth Be With You! )

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Posted by: iamrman

People seemed interested in my New Mutants Dungeons and Dragons story, so here is the first chapter.

( Read more... )

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Posted by: brerrabbit

( Read more... )

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Možnost cestování je silně omezená a nic zatím nenasvědčuje tomu, že by lidé v letošní letní sezoně mohli vyrazit na zahraniční dovolenou. Zároveň ale nikdo dnes ještě neví, zda se nějaká možnost přece jen neobjeví. Pokud jste si koupili dovolenkový zájezd, jste asi momentálně jako na trní. Pojedete? Vrátí vám peníze?

Books on pre-order:

• Network Effect by Martha Wells (5 May)
• He's Come Undone: A Romance Anthology with stories by Emma Barry, Olivia Dade, Adriana Herrera, Ruby Lang & Cat Sebastian (12 May)
• Two Rogues Make a Right (Seducing the Sedgwicks) by Cat Sebastian (23 Jun)
• The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho (23 Jun)
• Rogue Myths (Gatekeeper 1) by Layla Lawlor (1 Jul)
• The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal (14 Jul) (ebook order cancelled by publisher, sob)
• Ikenga by Nnedi Okorafor (18 Aug)
• Better Than People by Roan Parrish (25 Aug)
• Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade (6 Oct)
• How to Catch a Queen by Alyssa Cole (1 Dec - was 26 May)

Books acquired in April

• and read:
  1. Above Rubies (Clorinda Cathcart's Circle 7) by L.A. Hall
  2. Torches: Acquaintance Old and New (Clorinda Cathcart's Circle 8) by L.A. Hall [1]
• and unread:
  1. Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang [1]
  2. The Switch by Beth O'Leary [1]
  3. The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells [2]
  4. The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells [2]
  5. The Siren Sea by Martha Wells [2]
  6. FIYAH #9 (Winter 2019) edited by Troy L. Wiggins + DaVaun Sanders [5]
  7. FIYAH #10 - HAIR (Spring 2019) edited by Troy L. Wiggins + DaVaun Sanders [5]
  8. FIYAH #11 (Summer 2019) edited by Troy L. Wiggins + DaVaun Sanders [5]
  9. FIYAH #12 - CHAINS (Autumn 2019) edited by Troy L. Wiggins + DaVaun Sanders [5]
  10. Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #38 (July 2018) edited by Gavin J. Grant & Kelly Link
  11. Uncanny Magazine Issue Thirty-Four(May/June 2020) edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Chimedum Ohaegbu, and Elsa Sjunneson
  12. Uncanny Magazine Issue Thirty-Three (March/April 2020) edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Chimedum Ohaegbu, and Elsa Sjunneson
  13. Uncanny Magazine Issue Thirty-One (November/December 2019) edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Chimedum Ohaegbu, and Michi Trota [5]
  14. Uncanny Magazine Issue Thirty (September/October 2019): Disabled People Destroy Fantasy! edited by Nicolette Barischoff, Lisa M. Bradley, and Katharine Duckett [5]
  15. Uncanny Magazine Issue Twenty-Nine (July/August 2019) edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, and Michi Trota [5]
  16. Uncanny Magazine Issue Twenty-Eight (May/June 2019) edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, and Michi Trota [5]
  17. Uncanny Magazine Issue Twenty-Seven (March/April 2019) edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, and Michi Trota [5]
  18. Uncanny Magazine Issue Twenty-Six (January/February 2019) edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, and Michi Trota [5]
• and previously read:
  1. Hammered by Elizabeth Bear
  2. Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer
  3. Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
  4. An Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer
  5. A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
  6. Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett

Technically, I was subscribed to and therefore paying for the issues of Uncanny Magazine all of last year, but it doesn't count as acquired until I actually download and put on the ereader. (totally a rational and thought-out argument and not at all because I don't want to faff with editing them into the relevant to-read pile posts ...)

[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[5] Hugo finalist

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ingredients

• 1 apple, washed (peeled if not organic) ($.60)
• 1 cup mango,chunks, fresh or frozen ($1.00)
• 1 banana, sliced and frozen
• 1 handful kale leaves ($.50)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup ice
• water for blending (more or less depending on how thick you like it)

This is just a super simple way to enjoy some of the apples that are in season right now! Blend all ingredients in a high powered blender until very smooth and enjoy!


nutritional information
calories: 230
fat: 4 gr
carbs:47 gr
protein: 6 gr

• 1 cup carrots, cut into chunks
• 1 banana, sliced and frozen
• 1 cup almond milk 
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• pinch nutmeg
• 1/2 cup chopped dates
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans or other nuts
• 1 cup chopped apples

directions

1. In a high powered blender, puree the carrots, banana, and almond milk until very smooth.
2. Add in the cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and nutmeg and pulse a few times to blend well.
3. Pour into a bowl and add the chopped dates, pecans, and apples. A sprinkle of coconut flakes goes well, too!

This raw and healthy pineapple party in your mouth is super simple and perfect for spring. Hawaiian pineapple season is April and May, even though they're available year round. Price and quality will be the best over the next few months so take advantage of this sweet abundance and enjoy this vegan treat for breakfast or an anytime snack.

Oh, and to make this extra thick and frosty, cube and freeze pineapple and any subsequent pineapple juice in ice cube trays. Store frozen cubes in plastic bags for ultra easy prep.



   




ingredients

• 3 cups chopped romaine (or favorite green) ($1.00)
• 1 cup cubed pineapple, frozen ($2.00)
• 1 banana, sliced and frozen ($.20)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice (optional) ($.20)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla ($.10)
• 1 cup water
• 10 ice cubes
• stevia to taste (optional)

directions

• In a high powered blender, puree the greens until liquefied and very smooth. 
• Add the rest of the ingredients and puree until smooth.

nutritional information:      calories: 156      fat: 0 gr      carbs: 42 gr      protein: 3 gr



Speaking of pineapple ...

... this really cool little building was one of my favorite local landmarks. While on a bike ride the other day (hello warm weather!) I noticed the other day that it's gone! I'll miss it!! Maybe they got tired of me taking so many photos of it ... hmm.

To the women from all over the world I'm privileged to know, and everybody who loves international women.

I have been saving up some articles for the occasion: here are two marvellous bios of trans lesbian elders.

Jan Morris. [Content note: the article is in the Guardian which takes a somewhat transphobic editorial stance, though this article is very positive towards trans women. However it does deadname Morris and includes a picture of her from back when she was presenting as male.]

Sandy Stone, a couple of years old from Vice but it came to my attention recently.

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Not a gratitude practice; I'm really bad at that. Just, in spite of all the awfulness on a global scale, on a personal level my cup runneth over right now.

My extremely wonderful job was made permanent. I had been assured this would happen, but I'm really pleased to have it confirmed.

We finally managed to catch (at least the first act of) one of the many performances currently being made available online in response to the pandemic: the National Theatre's utterly amazing Twelfth Night from 2017. Lots of people have recommended it, so thank you for inspiring me to actually watch. It's on YouTube until 7 pm tomorrow (Thursday), and it's so, so, so good. So many amazing actors, and the set is great, and the direction is great, and I'm in awe, basically. Hope to watch Act II this evening.

We also really loved Knives Out. From publicity it didn't seem like my kind of thing at all, don't care about semi-parodic murder mysteries about awful people, but I saw enough reviews to convince me to give it a try and it's amazing. The comedy is actually funny, and very much punching up.

I have been having some wonderful distanced conversations with people I care about. Phone date with ghoti_mhic_uait. Phone call with hatam_soferet. Video chat with rysmiel, which we hadn't managed to coordinate for ages because of time zones and demanding jobs. Video chat with doseybat, who has been one of my favourite people to talk to for nearly a quarter century, and every extension of that enormous conversation makes my life better. I sympathize with all the people who dislike spending all their leisure time as well as in many cases their work time in calls, but for me, a one-to-one conversation with a friend goes a long way to balance the awfulness of lockdown.

Talking of which, ambyr, who also feels positive towards phonecalls, really kindly agreed to phone me to teach me Mystic Vale. It's a really pretty deck building game I'd heard good things about, but I couldn't make any sense of the interface on Yucata. And now ambyr has explained it to me and I'm really enjoying it. Plus I got to talk to someone I like and had only previously interacted with on DW.

And I have a regular call set up with angelofthenorth, who lives the other side of the country so we always have too much geography even in normal times. She had the brilliant idea of reading through a book about the Old Testament aimed at Christian ministers in training, SCM Studyguide: The Old Testament, by John Holdsworth, which I'm finding really fascinating. Mostly the conversation with angelofthenorth, who brings the perspective of an experienced Christian preacher and mentor of ordinands, whereas I'm a random Jewish person who obviously has a very different approach to the Bible. The book itself is written in a somewhat annoying style, but the content is good.

angelofthenorth, along with my sister, got me back into playing Scrabble using the rather dreadful official app from Electronic Arts. I'm really enjoying being able to ping anagrams back and forth as a minor distraction during the day.

Another friend who is completely wonderful is ewt, who transcribed for me the tune of the Psalm we use for special occasion grace after meals. This is particularly awesome because it's really hard to find any record of the Anglo-Jewish tunes I'm used to. Everything is transmitted within communities and not documented anywhere, and the internet is full of American and Israeli and Chassidic tunes, and I can't teach my own tunes because I'm not musical enough.

The final thing making me happy right now is the disco tardigrade. I have always loved tardigrades, and fluorescence microscopy, and this is just such a lovely image. It's my new 'squee' icon (cos nobody really understood the 'methane on Mars' one), and also my new Zoom background. Turns out, Zoom backgrounds are set per device not per account, so when I tried to put it on my personal account, it ended up showing up on work Zoom calls too. Luckily it's not embarrassing and my equally geeky colleagues love it too. (But in case anyone could stand to learn from my experience, don't put a work-unsuitable background on your Zoom if you use the same physical machine for work and personal calls.)

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It's leap day, which gives me an extra day in the short month to write this boring blog post! Alas, I spent most of the month traveling for work and vacation, and didn't finish my main-series project(s). Is the monthly shaming even motivational for me? Yes, of course, though I am skilled at filling my life up with whatever is currently catching my fancy.

For example, earlier this month I finally got working this fairly straightforward raspberry pi project, which I built to try to diagnose wtf is going on with my overcomplicated 4-zone hot water (hydronic) home heating system. It has a problem whereby my bedroom gets annoyingly hot under certain conditions, even though the thermostat is not being triggered. Just the "boiler room" looks like this:

Boiler Room

Of course I could pay someone money to tinker with it but the true satisfaction of problem solving is in suffering that problem for multiple years while you pick up the necessary skills and data to solve it yourself and work up the mental energy to apply the solution. In the above you can perhaps barely make out the diagnostic device hanging from the scary bundle of wires (not my fault) with some of its heat sensors zip-tied to pipes. The needlessly hand-built software can give me one of these:


System Diagram

(I was pretty happy with the cheap but fairly maintainable way I decided to do this, with a templated SVG file. Since they're text, I just left placeholders like [[alice]] (the name of temperature probe "A") and just string-replace it with the temperature string as I deliver the SVG over HTTP. Will use this trick again some day.) Here you can see Floor 2 source is hotter than the others even though its thermostat isn't even on. It also produces time-series graphs of course, which are decidedly more retro (but really is only visible at full size):


Click for full 1080p pixel glory

I have succeeded in catching it in the act and have some theories about what's happening (the heat appears to be convective but I don't yet understand why the boiler keeps putting out heat in this situation). But I haven't solved it yet, and certainly haven't fixed it.


SIGBOVIK 2020 is in about a month, and so the deadline is coming up imminently. Consider submitting if you have anything to share! I have a few ideas partly done but it looks like the writing will be coming at the last minute, of course.

Stay safe out there!

Well, April felt simultaneously short and long! I should have just posted these at the beginning of the month, my SIGBOVIK papers from 2020:

Is this the longest chess game? is another needless chess paper, here trying to figure out the longest possible legal game. There are several rules that make sure games can't go on forever, and some surprisingly subtle details/ambiguity to those rules. The whole game is of course included in the paper (17697 moves), but I was far from being the largest waste of space in this year's proceedings, as one provocateur had a paper with 150 pages of citations. Mathieu made a 5-hour video of the chess game I computed for his companion blog post.

What is the best game console? A market-based approach is a silly idea taken too far. It was a year in the making (mostly waiting) and didn't quite turn out the way I was expecting due to world events, but that's part of the "fun" I guess!

Conditional Move For Shell Script Acceleration was another collaboration with Jim (mostly his doing, but I like to lather on an additional patina of absurdity).

This month I have mostly been trying to keep sane and healthy during the shelter-in-place order. It's been harder than usual to find the energy to be creative, but I have had some spurts. I basically only leave the house to run (not going anywhere near other people). But I have been doing that pretty regularly, so between that and the prohibition against going out to bars and ice cream, I'd say I'm currently in the best I have been in ~6 years. Yesterday I claimed some course records for some Strava segments in my neighborhood! I also finished up Doom: Eternal, which was good but you pretty much already know what it's like and I'm playing Animal Crossing and haven't yet gotten sick of that. The timing for the release of that latter game couldn't have been more perfect, huh? Sometimes I need something with a little challenge, so I just started Nuclear Throne. I'm liking it but not sure if I have decided whether it's good enough to invest the time in to win (I almost always play games to the end but these randomized roguelikes demand a certain kind of potentially infinite investment. Like I never did beat the last boss in Wizard of Legend, and even in Dead Cells, which I loved, I had to settle for some modest personal criteria for "winning.") Any other recs? Could use a good Metroidvania perhaps?

Twitterにて…ダニー(きただにひろし)さんからIKUOさんへ。そして、IKUOさんから今日バトンをもらいました。#うたつなぎIKUOさ続きをみる

『著作権保護のため、記事の一部のみ表示されております。』

My washer and dryer failing me is a nightmare I don’t want to visit. You see, my current set came with the house 17 years ago, and were already 5 years old. The one set of appliances I’ve never bought is a washer and dryer–I’ve always purchased houses where they’d been left behind by the […]

New projects:

• anypool — General-purpose pooling library — BSD 2-Clause
• avl-tree — An implementation of the AVL tree data structure. — MIT
• cl-aubio — Aubio bindings for Common Lisp — GPLv3
• cl-interval — Intervals, interval trees — NewBSD, LLGPL
• cl-liballegro — Allegro 5 game programming library bindings for Common Lisp — Allegro 5 - http://alleg.sourceforge.net/license.html
• cl-mime-from-string — A one function library to return a mime-type based on the file extension found at the end of a string. ie abc.txt -> text/plain. The common types implemented are from https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Basics_of_HTTP/MIME_types/Common_types — MIT
• cl-telegram-bot — Telegram Bot API, based on sovietspaceship's work but mostly rewritten. — MIT
• dns-client — A client for the DNS protocol. — zlib
• feeder — RSS, Atom and general feed parsing and generating — zlib
• perceptual-hashes — Perceptual hash algorithms for images — 2-clause BSD
• portable-condition-system — A portable condition system for Common Lisp — CC0
• ten — Template System for Common Lisp — MIT
• trivial-custom-debugger — Allows arbitrary functions to become the standard Lisp debugger — MIT
• trivial-with-current-source-form — Helps macro writers produce better errors for macro users — GPLv3
• vom-json — A json-formatted logger for vom — MIT
• vp-trees — Perceptual hash algorithms for images — 2-clause BSD

Updated projects: 3b-bmfont, 3bgl-shader, 3bmd, 3bz, a-cl-logger, alexandria, april, async-process, bdef, bp, ccldoc, chunga, cl+ssl, cl-ana, cl-capstone, cl-cffi-gtk, cl-collider, cl-containers, cl-environments, cl-gamepad, cl-gserver, cl-inotify, cl-markless, cl-pack, cl-patterns, cl-python, cl-rdkafka, cl-shlex, cl-sparql, cl-str, cl-tui, cl-utils, cl-webkit, clinenoise, clip, closer-mop, concrete-syntax-tree, croatoan, cserial-port, dartscltools, defenum, deploy, dexador, diff-match-patch, dissect, djula, doubly-linked-list, easy-routes, eclector, escalator, fast-generic-functions, fast-io, flexi-streams, flexichain, float-features, fset, fucc, functional-trees, fxml, gendl, graph, gtirb, hu.dwim.computed-class, hu.dwim.def, hu.dwim.perec, hu.dwim.presentation, hu.dwim.quasi-quote, hu.dwim.walker, hu.dwim.web-server, hunchentoot-multi-acceptor, ironclad, keystone, lispqr, literate-lisp, maiden, maxpc, mcclim, mmap, modularize, mutility, nodgui, numcl, numpy-file-format, origin, osicat, overlord, parachute, patchwork, petalisp, petri, phoe-toolbox, plump, policy-cond, polisher, postmodern, pzmq, qtools, quilc, qvm, roan, rpcq, s-graphviz, s-http-client, s-http-server, s-sysdeps, s-utils, sanity-clause, scalpl, sealable-metaobjects, sel, select-file, serapeum, sketch, skippy-renderer, snappy, softdrink, spinneret, staple, stumpwm, sucle, swank-client, swank-crew, tooter, trace-db, trivial-features, trivial-file-size, vgplot, woo.

Removed projects: cl-password-store, fomus, rfc3339-timestamp, rpc4cl.

All the removed projects are removed because they no longer build. For the first two (cl-password-store and fomus), I was unable to get a response from the authors. The other two (rfc3339-timestamp, rpc4cl) the author was responsive, but has abandoned the projects.

To get this update, use (ql:update-dist "quicklisp"). Enjoy!

A number of people support Quicklisp with a monthly contribution through PayPal. I recently set up a Quicklisp Patreon page as an alternative - if you are interested in supporting Quicklisp, feel free to check it out.