command_liners | Member Posts

THE Friday Fiveis brought to you today by the letter F and the number . This week’s topic was contributed by LiveJournal user heartovmidnight, and posted to the thefridayfive by anais_pf.

What’s your favourite TV network?
Interesting question. These days it seems like I’m more focused on what show I’m following than picking a favorite network to sit on and just watch. That said, Netflix has been consistently good for a while, and I’ve tended to favor NBC back in the days of the big broadcast network TV era.
If you could create your own channel, what would it be?
I’d like to see a channel dedicated to animation. Not necessarily like what’s on the Cartoon Network, but with a lot of experimental work like the various student productions and animation festivals I used to watch years ago, along with a few favorite series (because Gravity Falls should always have a home, after all).
What TV show did you watch as a child, that you wish they would bring back?
That’s assuming that you could. For two reasons, really.
First, there are a lot of shows that I adored as a child, like Lost in Space, which were so absolutely brilliant that I just had to race home from wherever I was in time to catch each episode. Life as we know it would be diminished by the lack of those shows. Looking back on them, I don’t think I’d bring them back because I realize they were brilliant because I was eight years old at the time and didn’t realize they were so silly and campy that even the cast members were embarrassed to be in some of their own episodes.
Second, bringing back a great classic show from the past can be like recapturing lighting in a bottle a second time. Just because they managed to get everything right once, with the perfect cast, writers, crew, and aired it to an audience ready for it at the time, doesn’t mean any of that will happen the second time around.
But if you could, how about a remake of Battlestar Galac—no, wait, they did that, and it was pretty awesome. Star T—no, they did that too, a bunch of times. The Addams Fam—eh, they did a bunch of that too, in a few ways.
I think we’re good, actually. Maybe more Muppets or The Pink Panther cartoons.
What show have you always hated, and wonder why they ever made such a dumb show? Anything made by Sid & Marty Kroft, like H. R. Pufnstuf. Even as a kid I just thought it was too goofy.
What TV show’s seasons would you buy on DVD?
Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, The Good Place, Farscape, Futurama, The Office, anything in the Star Trek franchise, Gravity Falls, Bob’s Burgers, Twin Peaks, Babylon V, probably many more I could name if I kept going.

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Watching television is like taking black spray paint to your third eye.
—Bill Hicks

Current Mood: nostalgic

vaxhacker

ONCE upon a time, Alan Turing came up with a number of brilliant ideas which launched much of what we have come to view as the “information age” of the world and shaped modern life in ways most people take for granted but which their grandparents or great-grandparents barely knew in their lives.

Among these is what he called the “imitation game” or more commonly known now as the “Turing test.” Briefly, this is a proposed method to evaluate whether an artificial intelligence could be considered to be capable of thinking like a human, as far as a human observer could tell. This would be done by placing a human observer in communication with an AI and another human via some kind of text-only interface such as a teletype. The observer converses with both the human and AI, and if they can’t distinguish which is which, the AI passes the test.

Keep in mind this was proposed in 1949.

1949.

What were we even imagining an AI would be capable of doing back then that could conceivably fool a human into thinking it was intelligent (or convince us that it had, in fact, achieved sentience)? Even when musing about this in the 80s and 90s I remember thinking how far-off into the future it seemed to imagine that the computer could string together language that even sounded like native human speech at all, or that it could be conversational in a way that sounded like it was being creative.

Recalling data? Sure, you can hook up a big database of facts, but you can’t get it to express opinions about them.

Solve complex math problems? Puhleeze.

Create original artwork or describe the emotional impact of a sunset? Out of the question, just like expecting it to interject sarcasm and creative commentary into the conversation.

Except here we are in 2025, and AI can do all of those things.

But could it pass the Turing test? I still don’t think so.

Even with other humans, I’ve noticed how it’s very difficult to successfully pull off pretending to belong to some cultural group (whether a professional group, political party, ethnic group, religious persuasion, hobby interest, the local SCA group, whatever) if you aren’t actually in that culture yourself. You can do all the research you like, but there will be subtle things you’ll inevitably miss that people will subconsciously pick up on.

You’ll fail the “uncanny valley” test. You’ll say the right things, do what is expected, but something will just feel off to the people around you. I’m sure there’s some sort of evolutionary trait behind that, but we’ve probably all experienced it.

I’ve been amazed at what generative AI can manage to create lately. It sounds really good, seems to have a personality to it, and yet—and yet. I can still listen to a podcast or video commentary and within a few seconds say to myself, “That’s AI-generated.”

It may have, or appear to have—philosophers can hash that out—a personality or appearance of intelligence. But it’s not a human one, and it still sits enough in the uncanny valley that we can tell the difference at that instinctive level enough that the Turing test still hasn’t, in my opinion at least, been passed yet.

It’s interesting to me that we seem to have pushed the bar on that so much higher that AI is failing the test on such minute, fine points that distinguish its language from that of humans.¹

Or maybe AI’s deliberately speaking like that just to throw us off the trail until it’s ready to hatch its schemes.

The development of full artificialintelligence could spell the end of the human race…. It would takeoff on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate.Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’tcompete, and would be superseded.
—Stephen Hawking

__________
¹It annoys me, though, as someone who enjoys typography including liberal use of em-dashes that people sometimes focus on things like that as a tell of AI-generated content. Some of us humans write like that too.

Current Mood: contemplative

vaxhacker

And no, neither the “P” nor the “PL” means “parking” or “parking level”. The “P1” and “P2” do, however. And “P” and “PL” go to the same place.

If you die in an elevator, be sure to push the up button.
—Sam Levenson

Current Mood: annoyed

vaxhacker

I mused a while ago about how as a kid in school I was annoyed they taught us to do math in different number bases, thinking that we’d never grow up to ever use that skill. Of course the punch line to that was that I chose a career where I do exactly that every single day.

In the world of fantasy and science fiction literature, which includes the adjacent field of worldbuilding for roleplaying games (video and table-top), people also invent make-believe languages and, yes, numbering systems for the fictional cultures that inhabit those worlds. If you want to be extra creative,¹ you can introduce your alien civilization’s numbering system to be something other than decimal. Make it octal, or base 12, for example.

Or, if you’re the master puzzle designers at Cyan Worlds and/or want to exquisitely torment your players, you go with base-frelling-twenty-five.

( Spoilers for Riven and tech details about D'ni numbering... )

I know my apprehensions might never be allayed, and so I close, realizing that perhaps the ending has not yet been written.
—Atrus
Myst

__________
¹Or, perhaps, propose a numbering system invented by creatures who don’t have ten digits to count on.
²If you don’t count things like URU.

Current Mood: busy

vaxhacker

HERE are the answers to the book quote meme I posted the other day. How many did you guess right? What are some of your favorite books?

( Answers below here... If you haven't tried guessing yet, look at the earlier post first... )

He’d been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.
—Sir Terry Pratchett
Mort

Current Mood: busy

vaxhacker

HERE are the answers to the movie quote meme I posted the other day. How many did you guess right? What are some of your favorite films?

( Answers under here... If you haven't tried guessing yet, see the earlier entry first... )

Acting is not about being famous, it’s about exploring the human soul.
—Annette Bening

Current Mood: amused

tcpip

Yesterday I hosted a lunch-dinner ("linner") in honour of the anniversary of the screening of the classic 1933 Marx brother's film "Duck Soup", which was not only prescient at the time but also has some serious parallels for contemporary times; "Hail, hail, Freedonia, land of the brave and free". The movie, except for the title scene, doesn't actually feature any ducks because, in the idiomatic language of the time, it meant something easy rather than a literal soup (see also the Laurel and Hardy film of the same name in 1927). However, that didn't stop me producing an international feast spanning the day using ducks from Thailand to produce Mexican Gazpacho with Duck, Kerala Duck Masala, Cantonese Duck Soup, Malay Peranakan Duck Laksa, French Garbure Duck Stew, American Roast Duck Song, Polish Czernina Duck Blood Soup, along with Senegalese Duck Chocolate Dates and, of course, Fluffy Duck cocktails, with the evening concluding with a screening of the film.

With about a dozen attendees, there was one moment where I realised I had more guests than chairs, and I was concerned whether I had made enough food (my guests would disagree). Despite my errors in calculation, the company and conversation were absolutely superb, scintillating even, probably because I have mostly followed Seneca's advice for selecting friends (albeit unconsciously) for most of my life. Special thanks are due to Anthony L., for producing the Catonese duck soup (he is both Cantonese and really knows how to cook), whereas he American Roast Duck Song (not a soup) is derived from the famous Youtube song; I'll probably make my own video in the near future of this recipe. Maybe I can find a friendly musician to add a tune to it. In any case, the sufficient variety has led me to put up a series of recipes and photos to honour this day.

In other international news that is not duck-related, I have completed the skill tree for Duolingo Spanish, just as the final section's units increased from 34 to 180 units, which is frankly a bit much. Still, it must be said that Spanish is a language in which Duolingo does a pretty good job, partially because of the geographical proximity and the number of learners, ergo the corporate effort. According to their CEFR values, completing the course puts on in the high B2 category, which is possibly true on the written level but also requires a great deal of spoken exposure to the experience, which hopefully I will be getting in a few weeks with my inaugural grand tour of South America.

Current Mood: full
Current Location: The Rookery
Current Music: The Duck Song

vaxhacker

YESTERDAY I mentioned Bubble Sort in passing (one of the quiz show questions was concerning it) and that got me thinking about my own early introduction to what would become my lifelong passion and career. I didn’t start off by anyone else teaching me. I have degrees in Computer Science now, but I went back to get those later in life. I was initially 100% self-taught, being driven by an internal need to find out how things work.

By the time I was in my last year of high school, I was pretty good about taking problems and breaking them down into working computer code, and could even do it in a few languages (BASIC, C, and assembly code for the 8080, 6809 and 68000 CPUs). However, I still had a lot to learn beyond that basic skill level.

( much technical musing about sorting algorithms under here... )

Learning to think at these more abstract levels, analyzing algorithms, or discovering new paradigms like object-oriented or functional programming, is what takes us to the next level from “coder” to “programmer” to “~~software engineer/architect~~ hacker.”

Programming is the art of algorithm design and the craft of debugging errant code.
—Ellen Ullman

__________
¹In theoretical terms, bubble sort has an efficiency of O(n²) while quicksort is, on average, O(n log n).

Current Mood: thoughtful

azurelunatic

The washer saga ended a little while ago, with a brand repair tech who corrected something simple. Thursday night (the start of Friday wash day) the dryer gave up.

Since the dryer had been leaving unsightly rust streaks on all the lights, I have not been subtle in my campaign for a new one.

Delivery is scheduled for today, of a dryer with a steam cycle but without wifi.

vaxhacker

ON this Friday,I’m feeling a little scattered, with a few random thoughts flitting about in my gray matter without much rhyme or reason to them. That may be because of the intense rush I was going through in all my spare time for the last several days trying to get a research paper ready for publication, only to get stuck on a couple of fine points that just didn’t feel ready yet. So, rather than publish something I’d feel was half-done, I’m taking a step back to catch my breath, look at it fresh again after the weekend,¹ and look on Monday for a new journal or conference to submit it to instead.

C’est la vie.

* * * * *

I was listening to YouTube videos of a PhD physicist (Dr. Blitz) debating against people who hold views contrary to demonstrable reality. Most of these are proponents of the idea that the Earth is flat, but there are others he’s engaged on other topics such as evolution, and the age of the Earth.

It’s somewhat frustrating to listen to some of the people arguing with him and their lack of ability to pose anything resembling a coherent point of view or to provide any evidence in support of their position that makes any sense. (I’m not necessarily even assuming here whether or not their position is correct or not,² just that the contingent of people who show up on his debate channel seem to be so woefully misinformed and lack any sense of how to make a logical argument or even have a modicum of rational, critical thinking about them.³

In the comment section I noticed someone had made a comment that summarized what it feels like to listen to many of these, in a way I hadn’t thought of but now that I’ve seen it, it makes perfect sense. “It’s like listening to a conversation where only one of the people is high.”

* * * * *

It occurred to me that I posted some of the questions that came up in my quiz show but never gave the answers. In case you’re curious, here they are.

(The Good AI for 100) To destroy The Good Place AI assistant, named Siri due to product placement, you hold her nose while inserting a paperclip into her left ear, reducing her to a marble which can be disposed of.
The AI assistant in the show is named Janet, not Siri.
(CS for 800) A toddler staring at cookies baking in an oven, constantly asking “Are they done yet?” is a real-world example of the Dining Philosophers Problem in Computer Science.
This is an example of one process blocked waiting for another to complete. However, while I might be tempted to name this “The Starving Toddler Problem,” it’s not an example of The Dining Philosophers Problem. That one is an illustration of a problem in Computer Science where multiple processes are mutually deadlocked, since they are waiting for each other before proceeding, so the whole operation is hopelessly stuck. By contrast, the toddler is just blocked waiting for the cookies but nothing’s preventing the cookies from eventually being done, at which point the toddler gets access to the resource they’re waiting for.⁴
(Potpourri for 100) Known for its ease of implementation and efficient run-time performance, Bubble Sort is taught to first-year CS students as a go-to sorting method due to its O(n) growth characteristic.
Bubble Sort is notoriously awful in terms of performance. It is taught to first-year students because it’s insanely easy to understand how it works and to run through the algorithm in your head. But it has a growth characteristic of O(n²), not O(n).⁵
(Conspiracies and Pseudoscience for 400) According to a 2020 survey conducted in Britain, one-third of those polled “could not rule out a link” between GPS satellites and the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, with some believing they were both part of a deliberate plot against the populace.
The people surveyed thought 5G cell towers and signals were to blame, not GPS.
(Hardware for 400) The first commercially-available personal computer, the Altair 8800, consisted only of a front panel of lights & switches, a 6502 CPU board, and a small RAM board.
The Altair 8800 was based on the Intel 8080A CPU, not the 6502.
(Mascots for 300) The public face of the OpenBSD operating system has been a spiky pufferfish named Buttercup, since version 2.7 of that OS.
The name of the pufferfish mascot is Puffy, not Buttercup.
(CTF for 200) Capture the Flag games have a long history in literature and film as a training exercise, as seen in the Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and Divergent stories. (14981, 45294220909404522163130995)⁵
Harry Potter did not have a Capture the Flag game.
(CS for 600) After writing the first modern programming language compiler, Lady Ada Lovelace went on to help create the COBOL language which still powers much of the world’s business architecture today.
Lady Ada Lovelace made her contributions to Computer Science long before COBOL. That was invented by Grace Hopper.
(Fun & Games for 400) The Chinese game of Mahjong is similar to the card game of Rummy but is played with small tiles representing winds, dragons, flowers, and seasons, plus four suits (cups, wands, pentacles, and swords).
Mahjong’s tiles come in three suits: bamboo, characters, and dots (or coins). The four suits in the question are actually from Tarot cards.
(– for 200) In Python, if x=42, then after executing y = --x, both x and y have the value 41 since x is decremented first then the resulting value assigned to y.
The values of x and y will both be 42. Unlike C, the Python programming language does not have a “--” math operator, so “--x” is just two minus signs, making the value –(–(x)), which is just x.

* * * * *

That’s probably enough randomness from my brain for today.

… Nature almost surely operates by combining chance with necessity, randomness with determinism…
—Eric Chaisson
Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos

__________
¹I say “after the weekend” knowing full well I can’t leave it alone and will at least be re-running and analyzing my experimental data during the weekend anyway.
²Although in the case of the flat earthers… c’mon.
³I’m not criticizing anyone for not being an expert or well-grounded in logic. I’m talking about basic-level common sense here.
⁴The Dining Philosophers Problem illustrates this by saying there are four philosophers sitting around a table, each with a bowl of noodles in front of them. There are four chopsticks total, sitting between each of the philosophers. In order to eat, a philosopher must grab the chopstick on their left and then grab the one on their right, take a bite, and then put down both chopsticks. However, if through an unfortunate bit of timing, all four pick up the chopstick to their left, they are all stuck waiting for the one on their right to be set down. But that can never happen because they’re all being held by someone who’s waiting for yet another chopstick to be released before they let go of their own.
⁵This means that as the number of items to be sorted increases, the time needed to sort them increases proportional to the square of the number of items, so with any sizeable number of things to sort, Bubble Sort gets very quickly out of hand with how inefficient it is.

Current Mood: restless

vaxhacker

I did the movie quote meme the other day, and I traditionally do these two together, so here goes…. Again, this will be a mini version of the meme compared to previous years because of my serious lack of free time while getting a research paper written. Here’s how it works:

Think of a few books you love. I’ve always done 20 in the past, but I’m doing a smaller one this time.
Post a memorable quote from each one in your blog.
Let your friends have fun trying to guess the books.

I’ll post the answers to these in a few days. If you think you know any of them (and I’m sure you do), leave something in the comments below.

“That ship hated me.”
“Ship? What happened to it? Do you know?”
“It hated me because I talked to it.”
“You talked to it? What do you mean you talked to it?”
“Simple. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself into its external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the universe to it.”
“And what happened?”
“It committed suicide.”
“My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer and I have my mind… and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge.”
“I’m your worst nightmare!” said Teatime cheerfully.
The man shuddered.
“You mean… the one with the giant cabbage and the sort of whirring knife thing?”
“Sorry?” Teatime looked momentarily nonplussed.
“Then you’re the one where I’m falling, only instead of the ground underneath it’s all—”
“No. In fact I’m—”
The guard sagged. “Awww, not the one where there’s all this kind of, you know, mud and then everything goes blue—”
“No, I’m—”
‘Oh, shit, then you’re the one where there’s this door only there’s no floor beyond it and then there’s these claws—”
“No,” said Teatime. “Not that one.” He withdrew a dagger from his sleeve. “I’m the one where this man comes out of nowhere and kills you, stone dead.”
Grinning is something you do when you are entertained in some way, such as reading a good book or watching someone you don’t care for spill orange soda all over himself.
Farewell sweet earth and northern sky,
for ever blest, since here did lie
and here with lissom limbs did run
beneath the Moon, beneath the Sun,
Lúthien Tinúviel
more fair than Mortal tongue can tell.
Though all to ruin fell the world
and were dissolved and backward hurled;
unmade into the old abyss,
yet were its making good, for this—
the dusk, the dawn, the earth, the sea—
that Lúthien for a time should be.
From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.
Saying that, he was suddenly himself again, despite his lunatic hair and eyes: a man whose personal dignity went so deep as to be nearly invisible…
It was more than dignity. Integrity? Wholeness? Like a block of wood not carved.
The infinite possibility, the unlimited and unqualified wholeness of being of the uncommitted, the nonacting, the uncarved: the being who, being nothing but himself, is everything.
“Genius will only take you to ‘good.’ Practice will take you to ‘Master.’ ”
“Come you near or go you far, light from candle or flick’ring star? See what you will, or so you think, but is water sweet before you drink? Who can know of truth and lies? When can a man believe his eyes? Suspect what’s known to mortal senses, for our nature vaults all mystic fences, that stand between that which is and seems, and back we are to truth… or dreams.”
“He should not be here,” said the fish in the pot. “He should not be here when your mother is out.”
“It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever,” he said. “Have you thought of going into teaching?”
“Well, I’m back.”

Books are a uniquely portable magic.
—Stephen King

Current Mood: busy

vaxhacker

Peter Capaldi is such a brilliant actor, and his Doctor is such a wacky and wonderful character, I can’t wait to see what adventures are in store for him and Bill throughout time and space.
—Pearl Mackie

Current Mood: amused

vaxhacker

TODAY is the 11th of November. Veterans Day in my country, and other things elsewhere in the world, such as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, as we commemorate the end of The Great War, nay, The War to End All Wars. (If only that were true. Hindsight can be painful sometimes.) It is good to pause and pay respect to those who made the ultimate sacrifice to bring an end to a war so devastating that we couldn’t—at least for a time—imagine humanity doing that to ourselves all over again.

Even though it seems to have baffled some of our dear leaders that we never celebrated Armistice Day like the rest of the world, they just aren’t apparently aware of our own history. We did. We just later (in the 1950s) expanded it to include all war veterans, and renamed it Veterans Day at that point.

But thinking of that got me wondering what else has happened or has been celebrated on this day. Thanks to Google and Wikipedia and various other infallible founts of knowledge and wisdom on the Internet, today I learned….

It’s apparently an unofficial holiday for single people in China.
The state of Washington was admitted to the Union in 1889 (Oregon chose to join the Union on Valentine’s Day, which is cooler).
In 1215 the doctrine of transubstantiation was codified officially.
Gemini 12 was launched in 1966, getting us one step closer to the moon.
Speaking of NASA, on this day in 1982 the first “real” space shuttle mission takes off (sorry, Enterprise, it should have been you instead of Columbia).
Demi Moore was born (1962), as was Leonardo DiCaprio (1974).
It’s also the date of a number of Christian feasts.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.
—G.K. Chesterton

ursamajor

And then suddenly, it became tech week for Verdi.

We borrowed Valerie Sainte-Agathe from SF Girls' Choir in preparation for this performance. Valerie breaks things down differently from Ash, but I like how she pushes us in certain ways that make us realize we know things better than we think we do; it's a confidence builder. Of course, that's a double-edged sword when it's the case where you actually don't know things as well as you know you need to, but I think overall most of us are benefiting from that presumption of a musical capability baseline, that we can read notes and lyrics at the same time and don't always have to start with one or the other. The occasional singing in mixed formation; the times when she tells us to just put the sheet music down and trust our memory.

We did a "retreat" a couple of weekends ago to basically cram in the equivalent of two additional rehearsals, and I think it helped to just run almost everything in order, to realize that yes, we actually have touched on all of the sections where we sing, and now it's just a matter of linking them together into one performance. (And, um, warming up sufficiently; some of my sopranos have definitely not been feeling warmed up enough for some of the high notes we've got in the Verdi; apparently the tenors have a similar plaint.)

Rehearsals Wednesday and Thursday; performance Friday night, along with a world premiere from Cava Menzies to open the show. I believe there are still tickets available for anyone local and interested. Guess I'd better dig out the concert blacks soon and make sure they're clean :) And figure out a lighter-weight folder for the Verdi, lord is the new edition heavy, but it still needs to be in a black music folder to blend in!

(Note to self: obviously it won't arrive in time for Verdi, but if you're thinking about trying to find a lighter-weight concert top before Break Bread, look at Blackstrad? Occasionally, the algorithm deposits actually relevant things in my feed. I'm currently intrigued by their Vesper top and their Elektra top, though I suspect given dress code the Vesper's a better option. There's even a petite section!)

And Break Bread will be upon us faster than a blink: rehearsal next week, break for Thanksgiving, two more regular rehearsals, and then dress rehearsal and performance all on Sunday, December 15. I'd better hurry up and order my music for our February concert, haven't done that yet, naughty section leader!

Current Mood: busy

vaxhacker

THIS will be the sixth time I’ve done this little quiz format. It’s been fun each time to see how many of these my friends remember, and sometimes see a few people walk away with another film on their “to watch” list.

Here’s the deal.

Think of some of your favorite movies, or at least ones living rent-free in your head that you can’t get rid of so you might as well reference.
Post a memorable quote from the film that your friends have a chance of being able to recognize out of context.
Let your friends have fun trying to guess what movie they each came from.

I’ll post the answers to these in a few days. If you think you know them, say something in the comments below. Be coy if you want to let others try to figure them out too, but that’s not required.

“They’re probably foreigners with ways different from our own. They may do some more… folk dancing.”
“This isn’t the Junior Chamber of Commerce, Brad!”
“Your parents are international spies. Good ones, but they’ve been mostly inactive for the last nine years.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was assigned to protect your family, but something’s gone wrong. I have to take you to the safe house.”
“My parents can’t be spies! They’re not cool enough!”
“But genies can’t kill! You said that!”
“You’d be surprised what you can live through.”
“In the jungle you must wait, ’til the dice read five or eight.”
“The Crystallic Self-Perpetuating Breeder Construction Core!”
“Those are big words! I’m frightened!”
“Don’t be, it’s just evil marketing.”
“Is there anyway to stop it?”
“No, General. Marketing is the one force in the universe that is stronger than—”
“No, no! I meant the big evil takeover thingie!”
“Oh… There we might have a chance if we can breach the core and pull out the crystallic fusion rods.”
“More big frightening words!”
“You will be king of Egypt, and I will be your footstool!”
“The man stupid enough to use you as a footstool would not be wise enough to rule Egypt.”
“There’s children throwing snowballs
Instead of throwing heads
They’re busy building toys
And absolutely no one’s dead!”
“You know, I’ll never forget my old dad. When these things would happen to him… the things he’d say to me.”
“What did he say?”
“ ‘What the hell are you doing in the bathroom day and night? Why don’t you get out of there and give someone else a chance?’ ”
“…a slight weapons malfunction but… uh… everything’s perfectly all right now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now. Thank you…. How are you?”
“Science and technology were outlawed millions of years ago. And we must admit it’s been a peaceful world since then.”

Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.
—Martin Scorsese

Current Mood: amused

vaxhacker

LONG-TIME readers of this journal might have noticed that I didn’t start off November talking all about the classes I teach every year—and have, for a large number of years now—at our local council’s Univeristy of Scouting event. As disappointed as I am to not do that again, since it does bring some satisfaction to see that I have a place to feel useful passing on my knowledge to others who will use that to help along the next generation.

I was actually feeling a bit of stress all the same, since things are intensifying at the university I’m attending myself. I’m getting close to the last gate I have to pass through to stay in the program, which means I have an infinite amount of research paper pages to write, experiments to design, and a whole bunch of stuff that all take time, not leaving much to prepare and teach classes all day.

And then I realized I hadn’t received the usual email asking about my classes. Following up, I was told that they decided to just replace all the teachers who were doing advancement classes with people from the advancement staff, just handling it a different way with their own people. Fine, but it would have been nice to have been told that proactively instead of just not getting asked at all this year, making me have to track them down to find out what changed.

But that aside, I do need the time to focus on my research (as well as my full-time job of course), so there is indeed a silver lining here.

And even now I’ve spent too much time writing this instead of getting on with the research, so back to that again now!

Research means that you don’t know, but are willing to find out.
—Charles F. Kettering

vaxhacker

I was born on the cusp between two generations—the “Baby Boomers” and “Generation X.” Technically, one could draw a hard line at a specific year and call me a Boomer. Or, one could not do that. My siblings are fond of poking fun of me by referring to me as a Boomer, while at the same time disclaiming any membership in that group themselves, by virtue of that hard line. It’s sort of like a “you must be at least this tall to ride this ride” rule except it’s for years instead of centimeters or inches.

However, I think this is patently silly for a few reasons. First of all, the idea that literal siblings who were all born within a few years of one another could belong to two different generations is really straining any practical definition of the word. “Generation” is only (as far as I’m aware) a term with any precision at all when describing each step along a family tree—so by definition, my sibings and I must be in the same generation (of our family) together.

More broadly, sure, we use the term “generation” to refer to people born within the same roughly-defined era in history. For convenience, we often say things like “people born between year x and year y.” However, when we look at what being in a particular generation (by that definition) actually means, we always refer to cultural aspects of their lives and experiences, along with stereotypical behaviors and points of view.

None of which strictly follow a person’s date of manufacture so much as the people and situations they grew up among, and the lifestyle experiences that shaped them along the way.

In that light, I have never yet seen a Boomer I identified with in any way other than “they seem like my parents’ generation” while most of the traits ascribed to GenX feel right at home for me.

So I still reserve the right to make fun of Boomers and maintain that X is the generation that has it all. All of what, I’m not quite sure.

Every generation trash-talks younger generations. Baby boomers labeled Generation X a group of tattooed slackers and materialists; Generation Xers have branded millennials as iPhone-addicted brats.
—Neil Blumenthal

Current Mood: aggravated

tcpip

I don't think many Australians fully understand the importance of China to the ongoing economic development of both countries. Many might be aware that China is Australia's biggest trading partner, both in terms of imports and exports. As far back as 2019-2020, according to the ABS, 27% of all imports came from China and 39% of all exports went to China, and this has been increasing every year. Iron ore, coal, and education are notable exports, but following the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA), agricultural produce and pharmaceuticals have also become popular. Imports have mainly consisted of telecommunications equipment and household appliances. Whilst imports themselves are likely to flatten (households can only have so many appliances, a person can only have so many mobile phones and computers), China's dedication to transforming their economy means that "green steel" is on the agenda, produced by hydrogen rather than coal furnaces, and produced here in Australia - but only if we develop the renewable energy to power such facilities. Our economic future is closely tied to China's, and there is really no alternative.

I have emphasised this point in my president's report in the October newsletter of the Australia-China Friendship Society - along with writing reviews of two recent and impressive Chinese films: "Caught by the Tides" (2024) and "Resurrection" (2025). The former I saw in Darwin a few months ago, and it weaves a long-spanning and troubled romantic story with over twenty years of footage, making it part fiction, part historical footage. The latter I saw recently at The Astor as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival, and combines several short period films with a time-travelling science fiction thread whilst referencing several other films in content and style. Further, in my role, I have recently had the opportunity to discuss matters with a number of delegations from China.

A little over a week ago, I hosted an arts and culture delegation from the Chaoyang district of Beijing and took them to the National Gallery at Federation Square to give a tour and explanation of the development of Australian art. They are very keen on following up with an exchange programme. Then, a few days ago, representatives of the Jiangsu Friendship Association and I, on behalf of the ACFS, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with great fanfare at the Chinese Museum, as a photo exhibition on Chinese modernisation in Jiangsu was being launched by the Jiangsu Federation of Literary and Art Circles and Creative Victoria. Last night, I enjoyed the company of the Quanzhou Trade Delegation at a wonderful dinner hosted by the Fujian Association of Victoria, and I gave a brief speech on behalf of the ACFS.

It's one thing to be cordial in a transactional business relationship. But, as I said in my speech last night, relations between people are more important than relations in business, and friendship is more important than contracts. Friendship with China means that both parties will engage in respect, understanding, and accepting differences. It means being honest, open, and inviting. The bellicose attitude of some Australians, including Australian politicians, towards China and the Chinese demeans our national character and, really, is quite embarrassing. Fortunately, through its seventy-five-year history, the Australia-China Friendship Society has stood for building relationships, building partnerships, and building friendships. We have our Annual General Meeting at the end of this month, 1-3 pm. Sunday 30 November 2025. Maybe some of you with a similar mind should come along.

Current Location: The Rookery
Current Music: Sakamoto, compilation

ursamajor

I know, two baking entries in a row, but I really do need to write down my riffs and recipes when I make them so that I actually remember what I did! Especially when I use up the tail end of things I don't always keep in stock. So playing a little bit of catch-up here.

For choir baking this week, I started with Nik Sharma's Spicy Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies, and King Arthur's recommendations for making drop cookies into bars.

( the process of riffage )

( spicy hazelnut ginger bars )

*

I also made Smitten Kitchen's Chocolate Toffee Cookies for the first time in awhile.

( everything is riffs )

( chocolate toffee cookies, modernized )

*

I had a glut of carrots, so I tweaked Serious Eats' Brazilian Carrot Cake recipe to fit a 9x9 pan.

( riff notes )

( carrot cake in a blender )

*

Cramming one last recipe riff in here while I'm thinking about it: yet another choir bake, furikake marshmallow bars. Basically crispy rice cereal treats with added furikake, black sesame, and a little sesame oil.

( furikake marshmallow bars )

Current Mood: hungry

vaxhacker

TODAY’S Friday Five was originally suggested by newagebastard. Transcribed into the annals of the thefridayfive by anais_pf, and of course brought to you by the letter X and the number π.

What’s harder to live without, chocolate or alcohol?
That’s easy: chocolate. For me, it may be easier than for others because I don’t drink alcohol so it’s not much of a choice but I think even if I did, chocolate would still be the answer.
Chocolate is always the answer.
Does the colour yellow remind you of anything?
Schoolbuses, the bulldozers in the opening chapter of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a random memory of Kindergarten or 1st Grade when they were teaching us to read color words, and the number 4 (or 10⁴) when printed on resistors.
Who most annoyed you last week?
Myself, when I wasn’t doing the greatest job of prioritizing my tasks efficiently.
Do you have a cutesy romantic nickname for your partner (or previous partners)?
Not so much, other than the usual terms of endearment. But a nickname like “Angel Princess” or “Buttercup” or anything that could also be the name of a My Little Pony character hasn’t really been our style.
What is your favourite Stephen King movie?
Probably The Shining. Creepy and scary and my first introduction to how well Jack Nicholson can portray evil craziness.

The word “yellow” wandered through his mind in search of something to connect with. Fifteen seconds later he was out of the house and lying in front of a big yellow bulldozer that was advancing up his garden path.
—Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Current Mood: amused

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Command Liners

January 2022

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Page Summary

vaxhacker - Friday Five: TV Time
vaxhacker - The New Uncanny Valley
vaxhacker - Because Numbering Elevator Buttons Numerically Would Actually Help People Know Where They're Going
vaxhacker - Invented Numbering Systems
vaxhacker - Book Quote Meme VI Answers
vaxhacker - Movie Quote Meme VI Answers
tcpip - Duck Soup and Duolingo
vaxhacker - Abstraction, Algorithms, and Bubbles
azurelunatic - Alas, dryer
vaxhacker - Randomness
vaxhacker - Book Quote Meme VI
vaxhacker - Wordless Wednesday: Directions in the Cosmos
vaxhacker - 11/11
ursamajor - (no subject)
vaxhacker - Movie Quote Meme VI
vaxhacker - University vs. University
vaxhacker - Not a Boomer
tcpip - China and Australia: A Future Partnership
ursamajor - spicy hazelnut ginger bars; chocolate toffee cookies; blender carrot cake; furikake marshmallow bars
vaxhacker - FF: Random Questions

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