Deep 6 FaWtL

In lighter news, I've finally made it to The Three Doctors, and it confirms my suspicions that I had no idea what I was talking about when I was a kid:

- Patrick Troughton is acting circles around Jon Pertwee, readily proving that the Second Doctor was indeed in all ways superior to the Third Doctor.

- While I understand the sentimental desire to include William Hartnell in the series, his health was already failing in 1966 when he left the series, and by 1973 he was in such bad shape that he could only participate through pre-recorded videos. Rather than being an inspirational retrospective, it was sad to see him in his final years desperately trying to get out his lines. I'm very glad that they didn't try to replace him while he was still alive, but I think it would have been better to use stills from old episodes and a voiceover or something. As it is, there's nothing left of the vibrancy he had when he was the Doctor, and I certainly don't blame him for that. I think they could have handled it better by letting him do his lines audio-only.

EDIT: Hey, if you're trying to get lighter, there's one thing that obviously has to go first.

Also: children learn to read more easily when they learn cursive writing at the same time. And make fewer b/d reversal errors *when reading print* (something a lot of kids do at first, not just kids with dyslexia) than children who learn to write in print only.

o.O

I do not understand what are you talking about. I read fluently long before I even started school and had to learn cursive.

(/smartass bragging)

It aids in the development of composition and spelling skills. Simply put, your brain sees words differently--more fluidly, more musically--when you write in cursive.

So you are saying that learning cursive might have hampered my growth?!

I am completely musically anti-talented. Music lessons are my Freeholdian math.

You don't have to like it. I totally get it.

My big gripe was that the cursive font that we were taught at school was terrible-terrible messy design, with half the letters not looking like letters they were supposed to be.

I also detest absolutely, f-ing ridiculous idea of letters that connect to each other within a word. That is completely unreadable, turning clear letters into messy worms.

my handwriting has always been clear and legible, unless i choose to make it otherwise. learning cursive was "just another thing" for me, but i imagine it played an interesting role in my "ye olden days" career choice: study and translation of ancient texts. having a framework of pattern recognition through reading one's own handwriting and that of others probably has some merit in that regard.

i'm still engaged in a self-inflicted, self-taught remedial math course. but that only makes sense since i'm so heavily invested in making a new way to play Math Rocks Make-Believe. there's no denying the powerful implications and applications of mathematics; but as NH has once again pointed out, poor instruction methods/models don't help with a bone-dry subject.

i've been listening to Biographics and Geographics and other Simon-Whistler-narrated youtube channels during my commute over the last several months, and it has helped fill in the gaps in 18th/19th-century European history for me. whether the result of my own interests, or built-in bias in social studies content, after the Battle of Yorktown, the Old Continent was largely unknown to me, until Gavrilo Princip caught the Archduke on the return trip. i had done some reading on Bismarck as a "just because", and found it rewarding, but truly trying to focus on that semi-silent 150-ish years has been quite enlightening. and knowing some benchmark dates certainly helps.

I am completely musically anti-talented. Music lessons are my Freeholdian math.

That is unpossible. I'm sure you like individual songs, you can hum along to them and find the beat.

I also detest absolutely, f-ing ridiculous idea of letters that connect to each other within a word. That is completely unreadable, turning clear letters into messy worms.

But...thats cursive. The letters connect.

MOAR FIRE ENGINE NOISES

Drejk wrote:

I am completely musically anti-talented. Music lessons are my Freeholdian math.

That is unpossible. I'm sure you like individual songs, you can hum along to them and find the beat.

Hum. Yes. Beat? Yes, if you mean that I could beat anyone's brain into mush with my disharmonious humming.

Quote:

I also detest absolutely, f-ing ridiculous idea of letters that connect to each other within a word. That is completely unreadable, turning clear letters into messy worms.

But...thats cursive. The letters connect.

NO. That's abstract patterns. Letters are supposed to be readable or they are not letters at all but fancy pointless pictures.

When I write on paper, I use wood block printing. So I much prefer runic over cursive.

My "exotic pet-sitting license" has been revoked.

Impus Minor asked whether it was OK for us to take care of his friend's hermit crab over the holidays. I started talking about how cool it would be to pit it against the Cranky Calico on the living room floor, since she loves crab but she'd be unlikely to get through the shell. We could even film it and send the friend the video to show him how cool his crab was.

I was outvoted. And banned from handling the crab.

Imps being more sensible than NobodysHome?! That's a genuinely new one.

Also,

DO NOT underestimate the Deathless Murderkitty's ability to sacrifice other lifeforms to extend her own lifespan.

I was outvoted. And banned from handling the crab.

When introducing strange animals, there are knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns, and cat.

Imps being more sensible than NobodysHome?! That's a genuinely new one.

Also,

DO NOT underestimate the Deathless Murderkitty's ability to sacrifice other lifeforms to extend her own lifespan.

I'll be serious. She lived on the streets of Oakland for a year before we adopted her, and the only time she's ever intentionally bitten a family member was to get at their crab. I'd put the crab's life span at under 20 seconds, shell and all.

But it was funny to see the kids' reactions to my suggestion.

My "exotic pet-sitting license" has been revoked.

Impus Minor asked whether it was OK for us to take care of his friend's hermit crab over the holidays. I started talking about how cool it would be to pit it against the Cranky Calico on the living room floor, since she loves crab but she'd be unlikely to get through the shell. We could even film it and send the friend the video to show him how cool his crab was.

I was outvoted. And banned from handling the crab.

Just tell them how much bank they'll make by posting that s!~! on Onlyfans, they'll come around!

Ah, the last day of work for the year. And this year I really need a break to recuperate for a bit.

Remember way back when when companies and schools realized that workers occasionally needed long breaks to recoup their sanity? Even Shiro got a 3-month sabbatical just a few years ago because he was at an old-school company that still did them. And it's amazing how much stronger you come back after a long break like that.

"Work 'til you drop, and then work some more," isn't efficient. Even Henry Ford and his large-scale experiments on human workers proved that. So why do so many modern execs think it's the best way to improve performance?

I blame inbred stupidity.

Remember way back when when companies and schools realized that workers occasionally needed long breaks to recoup their sanity?

it's been so long at this point I think it's just you and pepperidge farm that remembers that.

Worker shortage? Work your staff to the bone, after all, you've barely enough hands to keep the ship running!

Worker surplus? Work your staff to the bone, after all, you can just replace them when the burnout sets in!

Labor equilibrium? Time for staff reduction and department mergers, the workers aren't producing a miraculous profit or productivity surplus so clearly the entire model you're using must be flawed, time to shut down some offices and force every fourth member to do the work of the fifth person who you are going to lay off.

Worker shortage? Work your staff to the bone, after all, you've barely enough hands to keep the ship running!

Worker surplus? Work your staff to the bone, after all, you can just replace them when the burnout sets in!

Labor equilibrium? Time for staff reduction and department mergers, the workers aren't producing a miraculous profit or productivity surplus so clearly the entire model you're using must be flawed, time to shut down some offices and force every fourth member to do the work of the fifth person who you are going to lay off.

A few years ago, none other than Larry Ellison ("Look at me! I can buy Hawaii!") pushed hard to eliminate quarterly financial reports, because they encourage companies to focus on short-term profits instead of long-term strategy. And of course he was ignored. But it's so rare that a billionaire speaks sense that when they do I tend to notice.

I am of the opinion that a great deal of worker pain is caused by the eternal push to show profit this quarter instead of this year or this decade.

Freehold DM wrote:

Drejk wrote:

I am completely musically anti-talented. Music lessons are my Freeholdian math.

That is unpossible. I'm sure you like individual songs, you can hum along to them and find the beat.

Hum. Yes. Beat? Yes, if you mean that I could beat anyone's brain into mush with my disharmonious humming.

Quote:

I also detest absolutely, f-ing ridiculous idea of letters that connect to each other within a word. That is completely unreadable, turning clear letters into messy worms.

But...thats cursive. The letters connect.

NO. That's abstract patterns. Letters are supposed to be readable or they are not letters at all but fancy pointless pictures.

I found it interesting when studying Russian in college that they way they solved this problem was to insert a little bump--like a graphic hiccup--in the flow of the line between certain letters to denote where one letter ends and the next begins. Which is useful when so many of the cursive characters bear little resemblance to their printed counterparts. Roman alphabet cursive fonts can vary, but at least they resemble the printed character. Cyrillic print and Cyrillic cursive are very different creatures.

We're not using goose feathers. You can pick the pen up off the page.

One of my projects in college for cartography was printing by hand. The night before a project was due I dropped a 30 dollar ruby tipped 00 (really fine) pen and shattered the tip (a kindergarden project in college...) To finish the project I whittled a stick to a point cut an ink groove in it and... with modern ink it worked fine. I didn't get a great grade, but I did get a HIGHER grade than I did with the pen. The teacher noted the improvement and facepalmed at the double ought stick when I showed him...

It always surprises me to learn that none of my co-workers are gamers, though I suspect there's something about the required mindset to work for a Global Megacorporation that precludes a strong gamer mindset.

In any case, I mentioned to a co-worker that we were "Bethesda-ing" and he was utterly flummoxed. "What's Bethesda?"

So I described releasing products before they were ready and dealing with all the customer complaints at once (lack of features, bugs, and general grar about not liking the product) instead of first finishing at least a baseline product and then releasing it.

He agreed that we were indeed doing exactly that, but he was also curious as to whether Bethesda was still in business. Hearing that Bethesda is continually doing this to customers (Fallout 76, Redfall, others...?) and still going strong, he felt better out Global Megacorporation's prospects of getting away with this.

I will still eternally complain about releasing software before it's finished, but apparently I'm now in the minority. It's just "how things are done" nowadays.

Drejk wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

Drejk wrote:

I am completely musically anti-talented. Music lessons are my Freeholdian math.

That is unpossible. I'm sure you like individual songs, you can hum along to them and find the beat.

Hum. Yes. Beat? Yes, if you mean that I could beat anyone's brain into mush with my disharmonious humming.

Quote:

I also detest absolutely, f-ing ridiculous idea of letters that connect to each other within a word. That is completely unreadable, turning clear letters into messy worms.

But...thats cursive. The letters connect.

NO. That's abstract patterns. Letters are supposed to be readable or they are not letters at all but fancy pointless pictures.

I found it interesting when studying Russian in college that they way they solved this problem was to insert a little bump--like a graphic hiccup--in the flow of the line between certain letters to denote where one letter ends and the next begins. Which is useful when so many of the cursive characters bear little resemblance to their printed counterparts. Roman alphabet cursive fonts can vary, but at least they resemble the printed character. Cyrillic print and Cyrillic cursive are very different creatures.

stops making fire engine noises until next year

That's interesting...

Ah, corporate hilarity encounters an obsessive-compulsive employee.

It's my last work day of the year, so I'm dutifully going through all my local and online folders and deleting or archiving everything according to corporate policy.

So everyone's receiving notifications that I'm running a weed whacker through hundreds of shared files and they're screaming, "What are you DOING?"

Because apparently I'm the *only* employee who actually follows corporate data retention policies and deletes my old stuff.

So many games on sales... So few dollars on my PayPal account...

Fantasy NPC: Dreamkiller

Is that really your brain activity?

Redfall is on sale!

Yeah, no. I am not paying money that I could spend on five days of groceries for that.

"Why do you even have it on your wishlist?!"

I have no idea what are you talking about! Nuh-huh!

"It's so bad that Nobody wrote a negative review on Steam!"

It can't be that bad, can it?

CAN IT?!

Redfall is on sale!

Yeah, no. I am not paying money that I could spend on five days of groceries for that.

Everyone wrote:

"Why do you even have it on your wishlist?!"

I have no idea what are you talking about! Nuh-huh!

Quote:

"It's so bad that Nobody wrote a negative review on Steam!"

It can't be that bad, can it?

CAN IT?!

It is worse.

Shiro's immediate quote when I told him you were thinking of buying it: "I heard they've improved it a lot! Now it just sucks!"

...

Aaaah!! Too much Doctor Who!! The past returns to haunt me!!!!

And for your information, I've reviewed TWO games on Steam!

Drejk wrote:

Redfall is on sale!

Yeah, no. I am not paying money that I could spend on five days of groceries for that.

Everyone wrote:

"Why do you even have it on your wishlist?!"

I have no idea what are you talking about! Nuh-huh!

Quote:

"It's so bad that Nobody wrote a negative review on Steam!"

It can't be that bad, can it?

CAN IT?!

It is worse.

Shiro's immediate quote when I told him you were thinking of buying it: "I heard they've improved it a lot! Now it just sucks!"

Man. That's bad.

And now Steam mocks me with an e-mail notification that Elden Ring is on sale...

Thank goodness for antidepressants. I just made my to-do and grocery lists for today, and I don't know how I'm going to get it done.
But I'm *not* crying or having a panic attack, so that's good.

consume game, get excited for next game!

Thank goodness for antidepressants. I just made my to-do and grocery lists for today, and I don't know how I'm going to get it done.

But I'm *not* crying or having a panic attack, so that's good.

The obsessive-compulsive's method of coping:

And yeah, groceries are terrifying. My parents always did a once-a-week shopping trip for a family of 6, filled an entire shopping cart, and were surprised when the bill went over $100. Yesterday we did our first major trip in quite a while; I usually try to break our shopping into 2-3 trips a week.

Getting hit with a $450, "This is what a full shopping trip costs these days," bill was quite the eye-opener.

Nephew appeared out of nowhere last night. And he brought the dog.

Nephew appeared out of nowhere last night. And he brought the dog.

Or you got a free dog and have to put up with the nephew?

It is with a combination of schadenfreude and aggravation that I watch $100M+-a-year executives demonstrate that not only are they not better businesspeople than us, but they're frequently worse.

I won't join in the Elon Musk pile-on, but Bob Iger's handling of Disney+ is truly a sight to behold:

His fundamental lack of understanding of consumer sentiment and expectation that people will remain Disney-loyal no matter what he does is rather staggering. And notice only at the end do I mention that now we're seeing brawls in Disneyland. Turn the Happiest Place On Earth into just another theme park and it ends up with the exact same issues as all the other theme parks out there. Leading to the question, "Why would I pay triple the price for this theme park over one closer to my home?"

EDIT: For comparison, when the kids were 10 and 7 we gave them walkie-talkies and let them wander Disneyland on their own, the only requirements being that they stay together and not leave the park. If a parent said they were going to do that today, I'd strongly discourage them. The whole "feel" of the park is far more hostile.

Nephew appeared out of nowhere last night. And he brought the dog.

THE dog?

The problem with combining households is stuff. And after ransacking both storage units and the garage, I was unable to locate the most important box, i.e. the one with the creche and the stockings. Until today, when WW asked if I'd checked my closet. There it was on the top shelf. (Closet has ten-foot ceiling, no idea why, but things can get lost up there.)

Anyway, stockings are found, setting up creche when we get home from Huston's Christmas play at the MiL's church.

Still have to make the pierogi, but there are a few hours before I need to sleep, right?

4 dozen pierogi made (mushroom, kapusta, and potato and chevre), makowiec made, and now I just have to clean the kitchen so I can get about five hours of sleep. Thank goodness I'm on vacation.

You need to sleep more.

*proclaimed Drejk going to bed at 8 am...*

I'll sleep on boxing day, since that's all about leftovers anyway.

It's really amazing to see the shortcomings in AI with very simple examples. For Christmas music, I like either instrumental or choral music; any Christmas song that has a soloist is likely not to my tastes.

And yet try getting an AI to understand that. "Instrumental Christmas Music" gives you elevator muzak. "Christmas music no soloists" gives you nothing but soloists because (as I saw in a talk on AI configuration just last month), the hardest thing to rule out in AI is the exact opposite because it's just one bit.

So all I want is a variety of orchestral, choral, and instrumental Christmas music. I don't think there's an easy way to do that. (I distinguish "orchestral" from "instrumental" to distinguish an orchestral playing Carol of the Bells vs. a pianist performing Jingle Bells, either of which I'd happily listen to.)

In other news, I'm a horrible, selfish person.

As I mentioned, I had a 102˚F fever on Monday. Impus Major got it on Wednesday and he still hasn't recovered (he hit 101˚F again yesterday). GothBard came down with it yesterday.

So for once I'm going to get to spend Christmas Eve with my family. I'll cook them a huge Christmas dinner (baked glazed ham, yam, mashed potatoes, green beans, and Hawaiian rolls) then we'll settle in and watch Christmas movies together for the evening. It'll be wonderful.

And they can't escape because they're all too sick to go out and ditch me on Christmas eve for once.

EDIT: Yes, I took a COVID test to make sure it wasn't COVID we were all sharing, and because I seem to be the only one who doesn't mind cotton swabs up my nose (I had an interesting childhood). It's not COVID. At least not in any measurable level in me.

Excerebration the home game.

Fantasy Monster: Ice Siren

Hopefully Freehold won't end with frostbites...

In other news, I'm a horrible, selfish person.

As I mentioned, I had a 102˚F fever on Monday. Impus Major got it on Wednesday and he still hasn't recovered (he hit 101˚F again yesterday). GothBard came down with it yesterday.

So for once I'm going to get to spend Christmas Eve with my family. I'll cook them a huge Christmas dinner (baked glazed ham, yam, mashed potatoes, green beans, and Hawaiian rolls) then we'll settle in and watch Christmas movies together for the evening. It'll be wonderful.

And they can't escape because they're all too sick to go out and ditch me on Christmas eve for once.

EDIT: Yes, I took a COVID test to make sure it wasn't COVID we were all sharing, and because I seem to be the only one who doesn't mind cotton swabs up my nose (I had an interesting childhood). It's not COVID. At least not in any measurable level in me.

You missed the obligatory devilish laughter with your arms spread and head tilted back.

*sigh* Seriously, those paladins don't know how to fall properly.

Fantasy Monster: Ice Siren

Hopefully Freehold won't end with frostbites...

Depends which particular end gets frostbitten...

OK. Wow. My tastes might be a wee bit more mainstream than I thought.

"I give up. Spotify. Give me a punk Christmas."

Turns out that some user named Idiot (yours truly) asked Spotify to generate this list last year... and it has 63,486 likes.

Holy carp.

EDIT: LOL. Turns out it's a pretty crappy playlist. I'm an 80s punker. Calling Wheezer or the Dropkick Murphys "punk" is more of a stretch than I'm willing to give them. OK. I love some Dropkick Murphys, but they're about as "punk" as Chicago. But at least they claim to be punk -- the list has frickin' Paul McCartney in it. SIR Paul McCartney. If you've been knighted, you're not punk. Period.

EDIT 2: Now there you go: Reel Big Fish's Carol of the Beers. THAT is a "punk Christmas".

Drejk wrote:

Fantasy Monster: Ice Siren

Hopefully Freehold won't end with frostbites...

Depends which particular end gets frostbitten...

It's really amazing to see the shortcomings in AI with very simple examples. For Christmas music, I like either instrumental or choral music; any Christmas song that has a soloist is likely not to my tastes.

And yet try getting an AI to understand that. "Instrumental Christmas Music" gives you elevator muzak. "Christmas music no soloists" gives you nothing but soloists because (as I saw in a talk on AI configuration just last month), the hardest thing to rule out in AI is the exact opposite because it's just one bit.

So all I want is a variety of orchestral, choral, and instrumental Christmas music. I don't think there's an easy way to do that. (I distinguish "orchestral" from "instrumental" to distinguish an orchestral playing Carol of the Bells vs. a pianist performing Jingle Bells, either of which I'd happily listen to.)

All you have to do is type in Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

I'm making a traditional Swedish meatball Christmas dinner for Crookshanks and her boyfriend.

Swedish meatballs
Mashed potatoes
Green bean casserole
Rice Pudding
Pies (strawberry rhubarb, pumpkin, cherry, buttermilk chess).

In case you can't tell making pies is pretty therapeutic for me.