Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • warm winter rambling

    Random rambling about my life. I don't feel super focus, but writing feels good.

    Monday morning Tai Chi, last class of the year. I drive back home, my daugher, tired, trying to clean the kitchen.

    I wanted her to be ready for pick up. She is confused and tired. We had a tiring weekend. I am happy to see her, while in Tai Chi I though I should have stayed and make her breakfast. There are often other guests during the weekend and we don't get to spend a lot of time together. I plan to have next weekend only for her and I, resting, taking it easy, cleaning, fire on the beach. Will it be the full moon then?

  • Nov 24 2025

    How did newspapers, prior to computers, organize all of their content for the day? Movable type? How about with photographs? Like papers in the 1950s. In my imagination I can see black and white videos of these big rotating-drum kinda machines that spit out infinite newspapers, but I have no idea how they work. It must be some technological step in between movable type and modern printing, but I guess I don't even understand how modern printing works. I guess my ignorance begins immediately following the invention of movable type. I'm going to dwell in this ignorance for a little while.

    I got to thinking about this today while I was taking some photos and imagining making a normatively-analog zine (i.e, as analog as my budget and skills allow). I was like...how would I arrange these photos on a page with text? Probably with a typewriter, scotch tape, and a copying machine. But surely newspapers in 1950 did not affix photographs with tape/glue/etc to a master copy. Or maybe they did!?!? You see where this is going.

  • Readings

    There is a normal reading here. A different reading is that "just shark" is another name for "land shark", which a speaker might indicate with a slight pause around "just shark" to better group it as the alternate name, or by using "air quotes" around the word. A different reading is that a land shark is just 'shark and ocean-going sharks "water sharks" and possibly any and all words that follow, the name being unbounded, except when those of the Procrustean persuasion must fit the name within some arbitrary form. Typically, however, this second reading is bounded at the end of the sentence, or the speaker may cross their arms to indicate the end of the line.

  • Character creation for Kinetic Energy

    I usually like to write a character or scenario generator instead of using the rules as-written to check whether they make sense. It allows me to see dozens of characters in a few seconds (once it's done). This time, I want to take it slowly.

    I'm aiming for three characters. I want a pilot, a fighter and a rogue. Let's call them Sam, Trent and Urs.

• Politics and World Events

  • A drink to lost naivety as the clouds crowd over our democracies

    Chat Control went through after all, after a lot of, shall we say, creative negotiation tactics. Trilogue is pending, so not all is lost yet. But it is not looking good at the moment. The text in effect allows for all the bad parts: - European tax payer money will go fund whatever Kutcher et al. have ready, leeching of the system for the foreseeable future

    - Client side scanning will be "voluntarily" enforced, but "all appropriate risk mitigation measures" need to be taken to ensure safety which is dubious at best

    - All chat applications or software with chat will have to enforce rigorous age verification methods

    And somehow, it does not make the first page news. Nobody appears to care.

• Science

  • Stargazing Attempt

    The skies were clear yesterday evening, but I didn't go out due to feeling tired and also not wanting to keep the kids awake. I planned, instead, to get up a few minutes early this morning and try to do some stargazing before going to work.

    I was able to get out around 4am, but unfortunately most of the sky was covered in thin, wispy clouds, the kind that don't quite block out the stars, but nevertheless make stargazing a frustrating experience. I thought I saw a few flickers of aurora toward the SW, but nothing to feast on.