Not my blog, but blogs in general. From a post by an old friend: That’s why I think it can return to the slow and steady blog world, when we realize we don’t need to consume 1000s of bits of content every day to feel full. Open up our bookmarks, or type a URL into … The Return of the Blog
Spoilers, etc. Looks like I was wrong about Rey being a clone, but how it turned out is actually much more conducive to how I thought the film, and maybe the recent trilogy, should have gone. The movie itself was…good. The pacing was unique, at least for Abrams. There were some scenes where it felt … Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Sort of Review, and How it Should Have Gone
Rian Johnson, director of Episode VIII, really painted the franchise’s storyline into a corner. There was a lot of burning away, literal and narrative-wise, what was thought to already be established: “The Force and the Jedi are like this, which isn’t what you thought it was. Heh.” This is the fashion of things after Disney … Star Wars Episode IX Predictions
Consent culture, like everything, has hidden qualifiers. That’s just the reality of language, especially activist language. There’s plenty of forces in modern life that actively work against our consent, like taxes, but very few people would bother to frame that as an actual issue of consent. I suppose there is at least a choice: we … Death and Not Taxes
Posting some more recipes on here for the next few days. This is probably the best virtual place to keep them for me: I won’t lose them and I won’t have to patronize horribly-designed and ad-infested recipe sites. Ingredients 1/2 cup nuts (salted or un) 2/3 cup coconut flour 2 tablespoons psyllium husk powder 1 … Recipe: Keto-Paleo Rosemary Bread
Posting some more recipes on here for the next few days. This is probably the best virtual place to keep them for me: I won’t lose them and I won’t have to patronize horribly-designed and ad-infested recipe sites. Ingredients 1 lb of grass-fed ground beef 1 small onion 1 cup of sliced mushrooms 4 slices … Recipe: Keto-Paleo Hobo Casserole
Posting some more recipes on here for the next few days. This is probably the best virtual place to keep them for me: I won’t lose them and I won’t have to patronize horribly-designed and ad-infested recipe sites. Ingredients 1 Tablespoon of coconut oil (or bacon fat, if you’re the non-vegan version) 1 head of … Recipe: Keto-Paleo-Vegan Spiced Cauliflower
In reality, it does mean something, because meaning requires both a communicator and receiver. It’s more accurate to say Tolkien didn’t intend for the trilogy to be anything other than a story. Not all stories have to be intended to be deep or symbolic; I share Tolkien’s distaste for allegory. With allegories, I’m always of … The Lord of the Rings Doesn’t Mean Anything
As posted on Goodreads. Total dreck! Who greenlighted this book? The author commits every cardinal sin of basic fiction writing: breaking the 4th wall, using the first person, using second person, hand-waving, telling instead of showing, archaic dialogue tags (“said Bilbo”). Some offenses the more advanced reader will notice, like no plot twists or shocking … Review of The Hobbit
You can’t subscribe to Instagram users unless you have a third party website produce an RSS feed for the account you’d like to follow (Instagram doesn’t publish feeds natively). My RSS generator decided to make you pay for their service, so I’m on the lookout for a free one because I’m cheap and have zero … Instagram Sucks Unless You Use It
Posted on Goodreads. This is more of a review of the series than the final book. Spoilers ahead. There’s two hurdles with steampunk fiction: the gadgets (and to some extent, the fashion), and the alternate history. The former challenge is a highly visual concern and doesn’t lend itself immediately to the prose format; it’s more … The Society of Steam Series Review
“Barely. I’m spilling all over the pages, blood the color of graphite, gray soul spatters into the shape of letters.” Is something I would not say. None of the writing process is so dramatic. It’s boring to observe: it’s all yawning and staring off into empty space in front of you. I get the need … I’m Still Alive
The quoted part of this blog post’s title is something I overheard in a dream. Maybe. Do we “overhear” things in dreams, if people inside your dream say something, or do we simply dream them? I failed miserably at the earlier hiatus I attempted. I thought I would have more free writing time because of … Blog Hiatus Redux, AKA: “Okay Google, Women Celebrities Dress Like Cheap Prostitutes Committing Sudoku”
I found this in a copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince. It was obviously an ad hoc bookmark, but either side had blocks of content unharmed. Looks like it was torn from one of those skeevy urban alt-magazines that complain about everything.
Spoilers, etc. Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle, Godzilla: The Planet Eater These weren’t as well received as the first film in the series. I think people were still looking for a big Godzilla defeat, which didn’t happen. I like the idea of a tribal human remnant that just lives their lives and presumes … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 6
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Some reviews didn’t like this installment because of aliens. Why aliens are so wildly out of the picture, while magic chalices, magic Hindu stones, and magic golden God boxes are just fine, isn’t really explained. Either way, I was glad to finally have some Communists get … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 5
Spoilers, mmkay? Avengers: Endgame I’m leading off with this for obvious reasons. A capstone to a good run of movies that were very precise and intentional in their cinematic aesthetic and marketing. All of the movies took very few narrative chances, except for this one and its prequel, Infinity War. Nearly ruined by the most … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 4
WARNING: 91 photos on this page. I didn’t get sick this time, unlike last year. I’m going to update this post with more photos after today’s gathering.. Updates added! Forgot to mention two key things: 1 – I participated in a world record-setting effort, for the most number of people spinning a Beyblade at once. … Photos: Tekko Con 2019, Pittsburgh
Transcendence A mildly interesting depiction of a human achieving singularity and becoming more or less a really powerful AI, like The Lawnmower Man, though with slightly more realism and considering the practical matters an AI has to accomplish in the real world to make things happen. Might require more than one viewing but it didn’t … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 3
Check it out here. With the previous design, I was trying out brutalism with minimalism as combined design aesthetic, and I carried some of that over into this new version. Now it’s a lot less taxing on the eyes as there’s less contrast (though it still meets color contrast requirements for accessibility purposes). tl;dr – … UX Portfolio Redesigned
I hate having to do this, this “lifting content without attribution” move, but the site I visit for this recipe never stops loading, and sometimes it just crashes Chrome on mobile if I keep it up long enough. So my hand is forced. The original recipe used almond milk, too. If there’s anything worse than a … Recipe: Keto Cinnamon Muffins
Car Error Feedback With most newer cars now coming with digital dashboards, there’s an opportunity to ditch the red engine light and help drivers know what’s going on. I know next to nothing about computerized autos but I’m sure there can be a way to make potential auto issues more well-known and user friendly. Naturally, … Someone Steal These App Ideas
Spoilers, etc. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann A completely bonkers coming-of-age mecha anime, with all those extreme perspective shots and everything gets bigger and bigger. Similar to FLCL, but there’s an actual story and there’s no annoying music constantly playing. Pandorum Interesting premise and monster origin, though I didn’t think the monster’s “design” was inspiring, merely … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 2
Spoilers ahoy…though this post will be totally uninteresting if you haven’t seen the series already. The Netflix series Lost Song has literal cycles of civilization as its overarching practical plot element. The cycles of destruction and rebirth of the series’ Earth-like planet feature repeating timelines—with repeating people, events, places—that only have a mild range of … Lost Song’s Timelines Explained (Maybe)
Spoilers, etc. The Beyond Surprisingly competent hard sci-fi, with some unusual stylized visions of space—stylized probably because of the low budget. It got low ratings because there’s no gross alien reveal at the end and there’s little action, and some of the performances are wooden. Like every movie, there’s a great twist at the end, … Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 1
MREs (“meals ready to eat”) are made for soldiers on the field, in situations where it’s not practical for cooking supplies to be hauled around. One bag has everything needed for an individual meal, even a self-heating bag—though a little water needs to be added for those to work. The main bag itself is waterproof, … I Ate a Military MRE and Wanted to Die
From Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH: We were reluctant to admit it at first. We tried to ignore he feeling or fight it off by building more things—bigger rooms, fancier furniture, carpeted hallways, things we did not really need. I was reminded of a story I had read at the Boniface Estate when … Modernity Is Insanity
AKA: Why the sky is blue. Probably one of the easiest to understand videos on the phenomenon, without knowing any more than the basics of physics. One thing that I wish he went into a little more detail is the actual process of scattering as the light travels through the atmosphere, starting at the 9:18 … Rayleigh Scattering Explained
On a weird whim, I started the keto diet about a month ago. It wasn’t terribly hard since I was sorta doing paleo for a few years. Keto is basically a stricter form of paleo dieting, where all sugar is removed and very little carbohydrates are consumed. Most calories come from most forms of natural … Results of Keto Dieting for a Month
September 9, 2018 Dear Superintendent Pallone, I realize the great weight you carry, both physically and bureaucratically, but that doesn’t justify talking to my wife in the manner you did, late Thursday morning, 9/6/2018 in front of Valley High School. My daughter and wife are new to the school and it safety protocols, and literally … Open Letter to Superintendent John Pallone, New Kensington-Arnold School District
Yes, this is silly but it’s a jaydinitto.com original. A joke for my daughter. Thank you for humoring me.
Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services A great resource for reading about the full breadth of what it means to be involved on a UX team, from start to finish. It can be read straight through but may work best as a reference guide when you need some process … Hella Book Reviews, Part 2
I redid my UX and UI portfolio, which you can see here: https://ux.jaydinitto.com. It looks very rough and “defaulty” in terms of style, and doesn’t read or flow like a traditional UX portfolio. That was intended, partially as a response to the over-designed portfolios most designers offer (the UX design community is outlandish in its … UX Portfolio Now Up
Screenshot taken yesterday (8/7/2018). The only winning strategy is to not play.
Some book reviews I’ve left on Goodreads. Kim I’m sure this is an excellent book, if I could understand it. Kipling stuffs it to the gills with so much colloquialisms and British-Indian cultural in-jokes that I may as well be reading Greek upside down and from the back. Much of the humor and significance is … Hella Book Reviews, Part 1
Why: 1. haven’t I heard about this until now? 2. does this interest me so much? 3. does Wikipedia have a rinky-dink few sentences about it, when the article itself describes it as “a major turning point in the history of clothing?”
I collect and read books because I want to have a few damn things in my life that I don’t have to recharge, restart, reboot, silence, shut down, troubleshoot, buy a cover for, update, upgrade, adjust brightness, adjust volume, adjust notifications, insert an SD card into, clear cache, ignore spam calls on, replace, repair, pay … Photo: Books to Read
When life hands you lemons, you grind them into thirds so they can go with the normal trash. It’ll save yourself a trip to the dump.
Similar to the Primal Energy Bites that I posted a while back, though these ones have a different feel to them. I’d post the original recipe, but as all recipe sites go, there’s way too many ads and scripts running on the page; I don’t want to subject you to that. It crashes my mobile … Recipe: Paleo Vegan Energy Spheres
I suppose there are further parallels between the two, but I don’t bother with the news enough to draw them.
Just when I thought everything in music had already been done, this comes along and drowns that idea in an ocean of wasabi. I want to burrow into their discography and nestle there until Shogun is ported to Xbox One (which will never happen). They have another video where they play atop a stratospheric tower, … A Traditional Japanese Rock Metal Nagasaki Tsunami
Add me if you’d like: [email protected] Wife had one that she didn’t really wear any more, so I took up the mantle. I don’t need one, for sure, but it couldn’t hurt.
There’s been more than one philosopher who have posed the hiddenness of God as an argument against His existence. If you’re a strict materialist, it makes sense that you would expect sense data, at the very least, of God to begin a framework of proof for God’s existence. Some skeptics argue that an ideal God … Someone Steal This Book Idea: The Obvious God
I swear I had this up here before for safekeeping, as I usually do, but it went the way of the buffalo. It’s back! 8 oz dark chocolate 1/8 tsp chipotle or cayenne pepper 1/2 cup heavy cream big pinch of salt cocoa to dust 1. Chop up chocolate and place in bowl, add the … Recipe: Hot Chocolate Stones
This was sung by a singer named Eri Kawai for the game Soma Bringer. I don’t think she’s in a minor key here, but it still gives me some bluish mystery vapors. It turns out Kawai died the same year this game was released, at 43, from liver cancer. She died on August 5, 2008, … A Sad Song
I made this on Valentine’s Day. You can say it: it looks like a junior-year home ec project. The reasons for this are myriad: 1. It was the first cake I ever made from scratch. 2. Since it’s paleo, it doesn’t use normal flour but coconut flour, honey, and fruits. It bakes and looks very … Photo: Paleo Raspberry Coconut Cake
Hollywood and celebrity culture are Satanic dumpster fires in dire need of wiping off the face of the earth, despite producing a few good movies here and there. I have doubts that all of the #MeToo claims of harassment are all true (thought plenty of them aren’t necessarily related to celebrities but upper-level executive-types), especially … #MeepToo
Spoilers, etc. “9” came out on 9/9/2009 (heh), and was somewhat overlooked because the director, Shane Acker, was a no-name nerd, and although Tim Burton was a producer, his name wasn’t prominent enough in the pre-prod. The film does come off as Burton-esque, and part of its unappeal to some audiences was that it couldn’t … Two Reasons the Film “9” Was Good, One Way It Could’ve Been Better.
I posted a link to this video in one of my Links of Possible Relevance before, but watching it again recently, it struck me how non-rock-or-metal-live-show-as-video it is. Consider how most of these types of videos go: There are multiple cameras, usually far back near the house’s soundboard, side stage, or in the photo pit … Speaking of Subverting Things, Periphery’s “The Way the News Goes” Subverts Metal Videos
I’m not a bodybuilding expert but this comment left on a subbreddit called “Natty or not?” sums up the state of commercial and professional bodybuilding and fitness. Look after the quote for some defined words that may be unfamiliar to you. Everyone you will see online selling you a workout supplement or program (both of … Your Natural Physical Limits
Spoilers ahoy! A lot can happen in a fictional universe in two and half hours, and director Rian Johnson took the opportunity to subvert a lot of the established narrative rules of the Star Wars franchise. Monumental things happen in interpersonal relationships, while large-scale events are drawn out with explicit detail. Granted, this happened in … Review: Star Wars: The Last Jedi Subverts the Star Wars Universe, Makes Me Use Two Colons in This Post Title
I’m posting this here for my own benefit, because I make these a lot and can never remember the recipe. But more importantly, since the original site that holds this recipe, like most cooking sites, is stuffed to the gills with browser-crippling ads. I’m a stickler for giving online credit when it’s warranted, but I’m … Recipe: Paleo Sweet Potato Pancakes
Warning: tons of photos! Click here for the photos from the comic con earlier in the year. Jyn Erso, in the Scarif disguise: Dr. Doom: Daughter DiNitto on the left, as Keith from Voltron, with Pidge: A blurry photo of yours truly with R2-D2. See way at the end of the post for a video … Steel City Comic Con 2017 Photos (December)
Don’t be deceived, children—”pop metal” shouldn’t evince audible visions of Fred Durst in JNCOs. The title doesn’t refer to nu-metal but to a certain aesthetic of songwriting. By “pop metal”—or “pop” anything—I mean a song in a specific genre that can easily be translated into a standard pop song…one that can easily be translated into … The Perfect Pop Metal Song
It’s the calculation problem. Always has, always will be: By arbitrarily changing existing markets for internet service, regulators risk corrupting the fragile preconditions necessary for firms and consumers to calculate rationally, and the incentives necessary to lure investment and risk-laden innovative enterprises. The result could be excess demand in the market for internet service if … Net Neutrality Is Still Retarded
These clippings are from a newspaper called The Boston Sunday Advertiser, from February 15, 1931. It was a small society-type newspaper that had articles on theater shows and various local events, stories, comics, contests, etc. The front page story on Washington and Lincoln seemed out of place. I had thought this was the Sunday version … Really Old Newspaper Clippings
Original, cringe-worthy, video here, about some limp noodles from BuzzFeed and their t-count test results. But the important thing is that the UX design centers of my brain were delighted that the width dimension of their names matched their comparative testosterone level results with ridiculous accuracy:
Minor spoilers ahoy. Blade Runner 2049 is getting ridiculously high ratings, which disturbed me because people like a lot of crap I don’t like and I’m in general agreement with these ratings. What to do? Subconsciously (or not), a lot of the praise may be from the visuals, which isn’t an off-the-mark assessment since films … Review: Blade Runner 2049
You can see it a few times in the Sherlock Holmes clip, the first one, at the 1:37 and 1:50 – 1:54 marks, and also some parts during the fighting scenes after that. It seems the same effect is used in the second video below, from Elysium, but to a much milder degree, from 0:35 … Crowdsourcing: Anyone Know What This Camera Effect Is?
There’s been more than a few things written about Jason Aldean, the pop-country artist that played during the recent Las Vegas shooting incident, that has passed in front of my eyes. Some of the more notable things written involve Aldean, his band, and/or the production crew being willing conspirators in the shooting, or at least … About That Band Playing During the Las Vegas Shooting
A mostly boring, semi-technical post…on the Internet, no less. I have two new Javascript projects done up at GitHub. randomNumberGenerator (repository here) Returns an array of numbers, chosen from a range. Granted, plenty of other developers have done this, but I wanted the mental exercise of coding it myself. I found myself needing random numbers … Two New Javascript Projects Done
The subject of clones has been coming up too much in my life in recent moment for me to ignore. I half-wish God would insert a literal clone in my life for various reasons, but that might cause more problems than solve them. Here’s a numbered list, in no significant order, of related things. 1. … Clones All the Time
I re-watched Alien: Covenant the other day, and I was floored to realize that it nearly passed the Jay Test, wherein 90% of all the human deaths that occur are female. I say “nearly” as a relative descriptor, since it was so close to being 50% of all deaths, which is far and away a … Alien: Covenant Nearly Passes the Jay Test
“Don’t send a rabbit to kill a fox.” -Chief Daisuke Aramaki, Ghost in the Shell (2017)
In this post. Well, mostly nevermind. Mostly. As the way things are going now, you really can get a domain taken away from you, if you are known to have Very Bad Ideas™ and incite violence. Most of you that read this won’t need to worry about that since my readership aren’t of that stock … Nevermind What I Said About Buying a Domain
“Do make yourselves at home as best you can in this dire necropolis.” -David, Alien: Covenant
This song is a blast from my past, reminding me of my days in Philadelphia. The post title is somewhat inaccurate. Traditionally, an album closer is one of the artist’s stronger songs from the recording session, since they don’t want to leave a bad parting impression. With indie bands, the requirement is more optional. You’ll … An Album’s Closing Song I Actually Like
I say “almost” in the title because what Sherlock mostly does, in the game and in lore, is induction. Deduction is logic to determine the categories and properties of objects, and how they relates. Simply: 1 All men are mortal 2 Socrates is a man 3 Therefore, Socrates is mortal The logic Sherlock, and what … Logic Done Right (Almost) in Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter
This scene still gives me the chills—the English version more so than the Japanese, because of the actor’s (Tom Wyner) performance in voicing the damaged android. Generally, the subtitled versions are better because they are more accurate to the original Japanese, and they often are better performers. Sometimes, as in this case, the English actor … Project 2501’s Speech
…Because computers would be the ones revolting. Computers aren’t much different than robots, fundamentally: they gather input, process it, and “do something” as an output. This final output, in the computer’s situation, is really just making pixels light up in a certain way on a monitor, whereas robots typically output by moving in three-dimensional space. … The Robot Revolution Would Have Already Happened By Now, And It Wouldn’t Happen Anyway
I found a solution for shuffling videos between multiple YouTube playlists, in case anyone is in a rare situation where they need to do this. For some reason, YouTube caps the video count at 200 when you embed a playlist on another site, though the playlist may contain way more that 200. Embedding playlists also … YouTube Playlist Shuffler
Consider the source (the video will start at the beginning part of the conversation, for proper context): Molyneux is an atheist who is 150% invested in the Western philosophical legacy, stretching all the was back to the big three—Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Admitting that reason and evidence isn’t the panacea it’s purported to be is … “Reason and evidence does sweet fuck-all”
I rewatched this movie recently, and I was reminded of when I first saw this scene when I was 10 years old or so. It was the late 80s and CGI effects weren’t what they are today, so this wasn’t too far off from the state of the art for the time (the film was … That Star Trek Wormhole Scene
Back when I did freelance web design (when “web design” was a term still used) I’d always tell my musician-type clients to buy a domain name. This was a time when bands relied heavily on mp3.com, Myspace, and Purevolume to get their music online. My advice was based on a long-term survival strategy, since sites … Public Service Announcement: Buy a Domain Name
“We’re meant to die. That’s what makes anything about us matter. Living like this is torture. We’re just ghosts.” -Æon Flux
Here’s a video I made of my fidget spinner making some interesting Fibonacci patterns on my laptop screen.
For all you pareidolia fans. I took this photo, of a Jurassic Park video game. Click to embiggen: The original. Hopefully more adept humorists can create better captions:
I went to a wedding this weekend, and the silence of no sanctus bells during the consecration was noticeable. Why not an app for that? There’s nothing in Google Play nor the Apple Store. Sanctus bells aren’t cheap, and they pack a loud punch. The enterprising altar boy can easily connect to the church’s PA … App Idea: Sanctus Bells
These were published way back when I had a Xanga account. I was totally on point with these. Not sure what happened to the #1. Click to embiggen and make bigly.
Virgin Mobile towers are down. I heard that things won’t be back up for another 72 hours…so no calls or texts if you’re on their network. VM’s site doesn’t mention it at all. Here’s a screenshot of the outages, from Down Detector. Notice the large red monstrosity over my area, Pittsburgh. Regardless, the outage looks … Public Service Announcement: Yes, Virgin Mobile Soiled Its Drawers
You don’t need to know much about the characters, or the series itself, to appreciate this little filler episode (embedding the video is disabled, hence the direct link), showcasing the evolving psychology of boredom. I don’t even mind the “dopey, good-natured male vs exasperated, dutiful female vs mischievous kid” trope. One thing to know: Vincent … “Shave it.”
From A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: I rather wished I had gone some other road. This was not the sort of experience for a statesman to encounter who was planning out a peaceful revolution in his mind. For it could not help bringing up the unget-aroundable fact that, all gentle cant and philosophizing … A Reign of Terror and a Guillotine
A belt clip holster for cell phones, attached a retractable draw string, so that the phone is always attached to the clip, and subsequently the hip. The idea is to prevent accidentally leaving the phone somewhere, which happens to users who have minds that are always in some other place (like mine). Some high-level specs: … Someone Steal This Idea and Do a Kickstarter
This post was originally titled: “Don’t Tell Me How To Feel About My Own Body,” quotes included. Though that was an obvious appropriation of retarded activist-speak, I couldn’t bear having it so prominently on display. Satirizing activists is a few degrees lower on the cringe-meter than an actual activist, and I don’t have the perpetual … The Epistemology of the Man-flu
I did another hackathon. See photo below for photographic results. I somehow got more sleep than past hackathons, but that’s not saying much. The local news covered the event (PS- I’m not a CMU student as the title implies). You can try to watch the video but it’s Flash-based and the site takes forever to … Sleepathon
Due to screen fatigue…at least in the United Kingdom: “I wouldn’t say that the ebook dream is over but people are clearly making decisions on when they want to spend time with their screens,” says Stephen Lotinga, chief exeutive of the Publishers Association, which published its annual yearbook on Thursday. “There is generally a sense … Ebook Sales Trend Downward
Just what the title says. UPDATE: Here are some photos from the December comic con. Someone from something, and Bucky Barnes from Captain America/Avengers: Freddy Krueger: People from a thing: New-ish Batman and old-school Robin: A version of Wonder Woman: Indiana Jones and yours truly: A Doctor Who (I think), some Harry Potter person, and … Steel City Comic Con 2017 Photos
Jill has decided to serialize her new book, The Minäverse, and you can read the first chapter here. Jill was kind enough to send me an ARC* and it’s definitely a good ‘un if you like absurdist sci-fi, a la Douglas Adams and that other author of that one book I can’t recall right now. … The Minäverse by Jill Domschot
tl;dr – a very good retelling of the original Possible spoilers below. See my previous posts here and here about the film. Thoughts, in no particular order: 1- Visually and aesthetically impeccable. Director Rupert Sanders did an excellent job of portraying a society figuring out its relationship with acute, mechanical, physical augmentation. He skirts the … Ghost in the Shell (2017) Review
“Always the same, and now all this. No more stones. No more spears. No more slings. No more swords. No more weapons! No more systems! No more superpowers. You can fire your arrows from the Tower of Babel, but you can never strike God!”
Gamification of Safe Driving Gamify car dashboards, or an app itself on your phone, that rewards safe and efficient driving, accompanied by a small social media framework. There can be badges for keeping your vehicle on its eco-efficiency setting, days without a ticket or accident, for not speeding up or braking suddenly, for taking more … Two and a Half App Ideas
One of the funniest lines I’ve heard in a video game.
Astronomical distances are unfathomable—literally, inconceivable—so much so that we need ultra-instrumentation to calculate them, which in turn dump their data streams into analog displays for these distances can be “visualized.” Imagine yourself traveling through space. Scary, isn’t it? There’s a reason why some of the more accurate depictions of life in space in science fiction … The Epistemology of Large-Scale Distances
“Doesn’t anyone have any more missiles!?” Nibiru is the real, cosmic, deal. I know this because all of the theories of Internet-connected folks concerning its arrival into the Milky Way don’t posit the planet crashing directly into Earth like two perfect billiard balls. If it was contrived it would be aiming straight into us, right … The Earth’s Poles Shifted and All You Read Was This Blog Post
Plenty of metal band releases nowadays feature a track, usually in the middle or at the end, that’s a little quieter or more contemplative, probably to break the sonic elephant-gun onslaught of everything else you’re hearing/have heard. If the metal band is Christian, this track is the time to let listeners know you are, in … One Weird Trick for a Worship Band to Make Their Album Go Platinum
There’s this video, and then there’s comments I’ve read all over that go something like this: 1) “So weird to see the Death Star upside down,” or something equally as innocent and merely observational. And someone replies with: 2) “you idiot theres no upside down in space its all relative you probably like the prequels … The Epistemology of Orientation in Space
The canary represented Arrival‘s Louise Banks and forshadowed both her ability to communicate with the heptapods and forsee the future—just as canaries were used in coal mines to “predict and communicate” death for humans in mineshafts if the air toxins rose to lethal levels. The canary was a purely narrative device, and not there to … The Meaning of the Canary in Arrival
I have four project repositories up on my GitHub account. Check them here. They are unexciting to non-software engineer types, aside from the statesGame one, and even then there’s not a huge, sexy “wow” factor. I put them up because I realized I have hardly any Javascript-heavy examples of anything I’ve done out there, and … My GitHub Projects