If you’ve already read the post title, do I need to provide a spoiler warning? Marnie, who turned out to be Anna’s grandmother, had told her about her life at the mansion and her relationship and life with Kazuhiko during one of Marnie’s bed-ridden bouts with her chronic fevers (note that Marnie’s caretaking duties put … When Marnie Was There – Ending Analysis
I, perhaps for the last time, switched and customized the theme here at the blog, using WordPress twenty twelve as a base. I tried to get rid of as many barriers as I could, experience-wise, especially if you on a mobile device. There are more details on my UX portfolio page, for those of you … Theme Updated and Customized – Fire When Ready
Story here, if you haven’t caught wind yet. Right now there are obvious choices being talked about: Susan B. Anthony (universal suffrage is silly), Eleanor Roosevelt (wife of a former head bureaucrat) or local favorite: Rachel Carson (malaria lover). I personally have little interest in who is picked save for one reason. However, these items … Ayn Rand Should Be On the New Ten Dollar Bill
A very non-serious post. I scrounged up from different sources these three desktop backgrounds that feature the intro screen for Xenoblade Chronicles, that shows the different times of day. I had to do some Photoshop work on them to get the positioning, proportions, files size, and colors mostly coordinated between pictures. I think they’re aesthetically … Xenoblade Time of Day Desktop Backgrounds
This article raises some interesting questions. How far should a scientific discipline go in its theories of “the possible?” before it stops being a science? For all it’s been romanticized, no one mentions the study of science can be an exhausting rat race with professional jealousies and money grabs. I’m willing to believe that half … Physical Limits
Back in my day, I had an outspoken atheist professor who said at the start of every semester that if we didn’t like something in his class: “Tough shit. Suck it up or leave.” I didn’t care because he was funny and was good at learnin’ me logic and philosophy, and I actually got to … The Occident Is Doomed
I’ve come to appreciate writers that don’t characterize immoral actors in their work as complete devils. Things that are considered immoral now, but commonplace in past times, is often depicted as being perpetrated by people of ill-character and worth. I’m willing to believe people who perpetrated bad “institutions” (nearly everyone) in the past were normal … Bad Guys and Ancient Knowledge
I’ve seen Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day blogged about and linked from many sources the last few days: Shadow work includes all the unpaid tasks we do on behalf of businesses and organizations. It has slipped into our routines stealthily; most of us do not realize how much of it … Why We Do Shadow Work
A breather post in between marathon writing sessions and some serious future posts. I bought a mountain bike off of Craigslist last week: a late-80s-to-early-90s Specialized Hard Rock. Functional has been in the shop for the past few weeks getting a tune up, so I thought it’s a good idea to finally get a backup … I Bought A Bike
After a bunch of plugin and theme updates, and a WordPress update, the WordPress 2015 theme I was using wasn’t playing well. That is, if you consider not showing any posts at all as “not playing well.” So I switched to the 2011 theme, which always seemed a little more stable to me than other … Switched to WordPress 2011 Theme
I don’t mean to brag, but tThis is the third year in a row I haven’t gotten sick—not the flu or anything else. This is even with living in a small house with a wife and two kids who all got sick, and with a 9-5 type of sit-down desk job. There was a time … Time To Brag About Not Getting Sick Again
Here’s a neat bit of imagery I noticed at the end of the Halo: Reach game. Some backstory (and spoilers, obviously): your player-character arrives on the scene in the beginning of Reach, on the planet Reach, as the replacement for the Spartan’s recently-KIA sixth member. Hence, your player’s name is Noble Six. The end of … Imagery in Halo: Reach
When there’s as decent amount of accumulation of snow or ice, especially on the street, and it rains, parts of the snow or ice on the ground melt and some doesn’t. It depends on the thickness of the snow/ice, how dirty it is, the grade of the hill it’s on, the type of ground it’s … A Possible Metaphor
Just Thomism talks about the Kalām Cosmological Argument, one that I’ve been iffy on: If the universe were ten minutes old, it would make sense to say it was not around 11 minutes ago, but this doesn’t mean there is a physical meaning to “eleven minutes”, and without this physical meaning it makes no sense … Criticism of the Kalām Cosmological Argument
“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” -Henry Ward Beecher Even though Pale Blue Scratch will be a self-published book, I won’t be skimping on cover art. My friend Marcia Furman will be depicting one of the devices in a watercolor sketch for book cover. … Of Art and Light – Pale Blue Scratch Email Newsletter #3
The Ghost Box is Mike Duran’s third full novel, about Reagan Moon, a journalist of the paranormal who gets caught up, to put it mildly, in some otherwordly happenings in SoCal. I don’t dabble too much in modern science fiction or paranormal (see below), so I can only really competently comment on Moon’s first person … Book Review: The Ghost Box
I normally pay no attention to legislative news because, as Michael Corleone said, politics and crime are the same thing. Inordinately fixating on the schemes of social deviants does not reside in the realm of the sane. But since the issue of net neutrality has some personal impact as a software engineer, I have some … Net Neutrality is a Bad Idea
There are honest movie trailers and then there are honest movie posters. Here’s my honest movie poster for Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. Now get me some bath tokens! Edit: The “bath house is a brothel” theory is contentious. It’s irrelevant to the story at large; just a point of interest. Edit II: This poster is … Honest Movie Poster: Spirited Away
If you’re my friend on Facebook you’ve seen me briefly whine about Scarlett Johansson’s role in the Americanized, live-action version of Ghost in the Shell (GitS). As I’ve said on there, I don’t care much about race qua race in most contexts, but within the GitS fictional world it matters a lot. Since both movies, … Scarlett Johansson’s Race and Ghost in the Shell
I don’t write about music on here often even though I have a large background in it. There is something I wanted to note in the ceremonial passing of 2014 into 2015. Our yearly New Year’s Eve tradition is to blast the Wii with the new release of Just Dance. This past New Year’s was … Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” is a Weird Song