aesmael

Making note of things I have done, to remind myself they have been done. Otherwise it is too easy to forget, too easy to spiral down into believing I don't do anything and beating myself up over it.

So. I have been up to plenty, despite not having much to show for it. Various bouts of practising my drawing with exercises from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, getting familiar with the command prompt via exercises from the appendix of Learn Python 3 The Hard Way, and batches of podcast episodes being downloaded and metadata updated to compile into a playlist for my phone. A lot of activities that are of the 'keep plugging away and eventually see results' sort.

The playlist is a bit more mammoth than I had anticipated. I have probably mentioned that my routine in constructing those is to manually compile playlists to listen through my subscriptions in chronological order, as not all their RSS feeds extend back far enough to work neatly with a proper podcast player. I'm currently listening my way through 2009 and thanks to a few mishaps with some becoming unavailable by the time I reached them in my listening order, and some shenanigans with how far back some archives extend, my scheme ends up trying to span the entire year of 2009 in just two playlists. I only realised this after loading onto my phone a list spanning January to August and finding the rug pulled out from under me for what was expected to be an August - September list, now extended through to the first days of January 2010, adding about 2.5 times as much work as I'd got done, just as I got to the part where I would have been sorting the downloaded files into their play order.

I am actually worried I will not be able to fit the full playlist onto my phone when it is done, coming as it does on the heels of another quite massive playlist. Especially as several months back I actually outpaced the playlists I had loaded for the first time since beginning this project many years ago and turned to loading some audio books and dramas to fill the gap while I got the list loaded; I've decided to intersperse these playlists with more such dramatics. Not even bothering to try sourcing those until I have the podcasts themselves down and sorted. I suspect that I may have to break it into two chunks, with the first being what I'd downloaded before that rug-pull and treated as essentially a continuation of the playlist I'm currently listening to, and then the second to follow as the 'real new' playlist when I get past the current one and can delete it off my phone.

With my normal procedure of keeping three of those on the go - one for current, one to have ready to flow into when that one ends, and the third as backup in case I get through two playlists without making a new one ready - I will have a long while at this before I can be done and coast awhile again. Once I do I intend to get a bit more proactive and pull down the archives in advance. Too often, and especially of late, have I come to fetch episodes only to find the archive truncated, reorganised, or even the site entirely gone. I would rather guard against that by backing it all up locally if I can manage the hard drive space to hold them all.

Perhaps the curse of journalling so infrequently is my inability to remember what I have and have not recorded in the past.

For a while I've thought it could be fun to engage in solo-RP activities and turn the result into a story. And for a long time I believed the way to go would be to learn web formatting & styling so I could present the narrative as a 3/4 page column and the underlying dice rolls pegged alongside in a slide-in and slide-out 1/4 page column. The existence of the Beaker Browser project encouraged me to think this was a viable project especially as it could be hosted locally and I wouldn't have to worry about where and how to put this for people to read. But, with Beaker being shuttered I am at a bit of a loss.

I have also been wondering if I might do better to use a specialised document format. HTML is easy enough but maybe if I have any particular styling requirements it would be better to present in PDF, and maybe even style the document using LaTeX. The trouble with this is

• The web isn't set up well to flow between such documents
• I don't have anywhere to host them
• I don't even have enough local storage to install LyX to do that editing

I think when we experience a desire to share music [or something else which may be the subject of a similar desire] with others this is often a proxy for a less commonly known or appreciated desire. I think what we often truly wish to share is the experience of the moment, the emotions that are being inspired in us. "I want to share this ecstasy, this joy, this wonder, this passion, this moment of empathy or grief or oneness [...] and the only way I know to even approach doing so is by sharing with you what is the immediate inspiration of my feelings."

1. Thoughts on Day One of the DNC [Maybe I should amalgamate all the Scienceblogs postings under a single heading. I find something vaguely distasteful about this and the last post from here. Maybe it is an air of self-congratulation.]
2. Effete Hollywood Elitists for McCain

1. The Future of Books [via soltice. Was expecting "E-books: Yea or abomination?" Instead, Pretty.]
2. Laser pointers banned in New South Wales after rash of attacks on pilots [via soltice. But I want one.]
3. Super Mario Girls [via soltice. Cute, yes. Not everything needs to be done with sex appeal in mind though. And since when are "fluffy clouds with faces and bubbly turtles and blocky landscapes" unmanly? But I like the picture.]
4. Cat 5 wedding rings help nerds couple [via soltice. I, uh, don't know what these actually do.]
5. Moe Angel with Headphones [via soltice. Cute cute cute! *save*]
6. Bioware devs debate whether Wii is part of gaming [via gentle_gamer. It seems an odd question to me, since the Wii seems clearly a device for playing games, but the post is just a quick summary linking to an interview. No, wait. That was a preface too. Interview here. There are lots of words there at the beginning but I am not entirely sure these people are saying anything... a bit like reading some Post-Modern discourse. It seems like an interesting question though: what counts as gaming? I want to say "playing a game". This talk of narrative... that seems like something else to me. Something called 'narrative'. Describing the experience of playing a Wii as "toy-like", or making a distinction with sports such as tennis, this seems to me like an attempt to mark gaming as a particular kind of experience, a particular approach to an activity. I think what is being gotten at is a degree of seriousness and immersion. I think it probably does constitute a bundle of approaches, any subset of which can apply at a given time, and what the Bioware folks are talking about constitutes one of these subsets. Although reading to the end of the page I think I misunderstood them a bit. I am being vague because I am tired. Possibly follow up later with input from others?]
7. Celebrate Mario Kart Wii with alternate karts, Wii wheel substitutions [via gentle_gamer. Funny.]
8. Working NES squeezed into ... an NES cartridge [via gentle_gamer. Wow, neat! This title messes with my ideas of how it should be pronounced.]
9. SIU responds to anti-feminist email [via gentle_gamer. Oh, wow! It feels so rare to see such a desirable response, it can get disheartening.]
10. The Fag Bug is back! [via gentle_gamer. That's a pretty creative and great response to vandalism. Interesting seeing the change in tone of people's responses between the first post, in which Erin Davies starts her mission, and the second post, in which it is revealed she is getting a book and film deal out of this.]

1. David Wain Moves From Wainy Days to Role Models [Who is this guy? Why do I care what he does? I fear curiosity clicking from gmail has gotten the better of me...]
2. Time to "Free the Airwaves" [Google would like people to be activist on their behalf.]
3. Top Fun Date Ideas [These are not romantic? My idea of a going-somewhere date is to do something we will enjoy, so these seem more like standard date ideas than special fun ones. Admittedly I have been on very few dates in my life, but this makes it seem like something which is supposed to be very restrained in ways which are not interesting to me. At least now I know what an Interpretive Center is.*]

1. "To kill and cure cancer, you must first understand it" [Orac is as ever verbose.]

1. The luxury of time [I've not encountered this blog before. This is... fascinating. Not much to say because processing.]

1. It's 4am [Labs are not supposed to be flooded. Unless you work in underseaology.]

soltice

pazi_ashfeather

1. Dark Matter and Fifth Forces [Unfortunately I know this stuff less well than I ever did, but still a moment of "Oh wow, that is really interesting" in reading.]

1. Biodiesel Mythbuster 2.0: Twenty-Two Biodiesel Myths  Dispelled [via soltice. Long, interesting. Not something I am really qualified to evaluate. Looks decent though.]
2. Electric Skateboard (Double Comic) [via gentle_gamer. skipped because I am not reading xkcd yet.]
3. Gibson intros SG Robot Guitar, new edition of Les Paul version [via soltice. My first thought was that this must be a guitar designed by William Gibson. I still do not know.]
4. What is the big deal about stuff white people like? [via gentle_gamer. When I started reading this I thought I would have some quick, possibly snarky thing to say in response, but it turned out to be a serious criticism of the blog, one that made a lot of sense to me. Oh, one thing to add. I am inclined to agree with the comments to this post that 'Stuff White People Like' is fairly conservative in outlook in cliche in line, but the way it is framed still does some good by jarring white people to take another look at their assumptions and culture. At least, it did for me the first time I encountered it.]
5. Video: Little Big Man - today is a good day to die [via soltice. A robot driving a robot. Sort of. But it tempts me to have thoughts about things so it must be art.]
6. Australian government wants power to snoop work e-mail, IMs [via soltice. Oh, those insidious terrorists.]
7. Toon: A Few Reasons Why (We Need a Transgender Rights Bill) [via gentle_gamer. Interesting. Not ever seen this site before. The rest of her work on the site seems pretty neat too.]
8. Libraries in crisis? [via soltice. Refers to here. Not so great news for someone hoping to work there next year. I am not convinced the writer of the article knows what ey is talking about though.]
9. Toon: The Joys of Tax Time! [via gentle_gamer. If this keeps up, I may subscribe myself. Or this is good too.]
10. Burning Car [via gentle_gamer. First thought: bored. On further examination, fascinated by the moments which might be so captured and their preservation marking dramatically the stilled moments of time marking the shifting sources of these images.]
11. Yuri's Planet [via gentle_gamer. Thought I had starred this for possible desktop use. Apparently not. Fixed now.]

1. solticepazi_ashfeatherLeishmaniasis Parasites Evade Death By Exploiting Immune Response To Sand Fly Bites [Sometimes I wonder what immune systems do when they are not being subverted. Sometimes.]

metaquotes

Cutlery and Utensils: A Brief Taxonomic Study of the Evolution of Eusociality in the Kitchen
Trojanhorse Heales-Shadowfax, BSc (Hons)


The oldest known members of the Order Utensillida (Kingdom; Objecta, Phylum; Kitchenae, Class: Preparata) are those of the Family Incisidiformes; the Knives. Today the only common extant genus of incisids is the nominate genus Incisa, which are brood parasites.
From basal incisids arose the two groups of higher utensils; the nominate family Utensillidiformes, which includes the rarer and more solitary forms such as Whisks (Miscidae), the Slicers (Egg-Slicers, Ouefcoutidae, and Cheese-Slicers, Fromagecoutidae), and the predatory Meat-Tenderisers (Carneidae) and Garlic-Presses (Alliumsativumidae); and the large family Plataeiformes, or Spoons. The plataeids have two basic modes of life; monogamy (practised by the Spatulidae) and eusociality (as seen in the Plataeidae). The tendency for the more advanced plataeids to be smaller than their less specialised cousins is well documented.

Incisa cuculia, the Steak Knife Cuckoo.

Incisa cuculia is the most common of the incisids. Adults form colonies living in wooden blocks, and may be highly diverse in form. In general, females are slender, gracile forms known as boning or filleting knives. Males are heavier, and dominant males may become cleavers in later life. Juvenile forms are steak knives and seek shelter in the cutlery drawer amongst colonies of Plateus eusocialus, the spoon-bee, where they masquerade as soldiers until maturity.


Misca misca, the Common Whisk

This utensil is a parasitoid, ultimately responsible for the demise of any utensil drawer or jar. It draws nourishment from entangling other utensils and may end up snarling so many hapless victims in its maw that it can no longer function itself.

Meat tenderisers, garlic presses, cheese and egg slices, (genera Carna, Alliumsativum, Ouefcouta and Fromagecouta)

Most utensil drawers will have only one or two of these hermit utensils; they do not cohabit easily and there is usually fierce competition between them until their numbers are reduced to a sustainable level in any one kitchen.

Spatula pisca; the Faithful Spatula

Technically, the spatula is the female of the species, where the fish-slice is the male form. This level of sexual dimorphism is responsible for their being placed often in separate species by early taxonomists. Interestingly, this genus practices live birth of young; young spatulas resemble the female closely but will be smaller and more rubbery, thus making them both easier to give birth to, presumably, and more useful to the cook.

Plateus eusocialus; the Spoon-Bee

These are an indispensible kitchen organism, eusocial with the ladle as queen, knives as soldiers, spoons of various types as workers, forks as drones and teaspoons being the larval stage. The spork is a sad hermaphrodite mutation, the increase of which is probably due to increased use of pesticides in food. Often, cooks will find measuring spoons (Plateus sucraetcetera) in spoon-bee colonies; thi is an example of symbiosis; by using the measuring spoon the cook is giving it more food, and the use of it for the task of measuring means more time in the hive (cutlery drawer) for the teaspoon larvae. If there is more than one ladle in the drawer, they will fight to the death and often wreck the drawer at the same time. This fight to the death may take years; it works by one ladle being pushed towards the front of the drawer, inducing the cook to use it more often and thus wear it out faster.

More research is being conducted as this article goes to press.