Sky Guide
Apps on our smartphones get a bad rap for wasting our time, and deservedly. It's true that most are either harmful or neutral, or a distraction, or a minor convenience. One set of apps that are…
Monthly Recap (Sep 2020)
Major updates * Trip to Capitola Minor updates * A new family board game: Labyrinth * Re-activated my Facebook account, mostly to follow Tara’s school account * This month went by … really qui…
Generally interesting links - Sep 2020
* A John Carmack interview from way, way back. Legendary. * Rapping on cartoon impressions (I was … very impressed!) * This month in Archaeology #1: examining the evidence of a massive bronze-age b…
Harry Potter: revisited & renewed
We recently watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone — and I realized the movie is already twenty years old! I thought I’d read the book with my daughter, now that we’ve seen the movie, and I th…
Deus Ex McKenna
I was going to make a short comment about liking some specific video, then thought I should provide context, then realized that I have … no real way to start because there was too much to say, and if…
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Trials
Came upon this scene recently — well, no, I didn’t just come upon it, that would be creepy even by Youtube’s standards1 — I was suddenly reminded of the movie at night, and then (as often happens? ins…
A joke from some time ago
If I may share without comment, a translated version of a popular joke on Weibo a few years ago.…
The Enchanted Wood
A long time ago, when I was busy trying to read everything by Enid Blyton1, I came across The Magic Faraway Tree. And. I. Loved. It. This being the age before Amazon and not having a large library ar…
A prescient interview by Aldous Huxley
Remember, this interview was filmed just over six decades ago, and reference a book written nine decades ago (Brave New World). Of course, his interviewer is humoring him and not quite taking him ser…
Monthly Recap (Aug 2020)
Major updates * Tara began (virtual) kindergarten (!) Minor updates * Garage cleanup * Finished my fourth 1000-piece puzzle * Haircuts * Some dentist trips * Trips: Pleasanton to meet friend…
My history with computers, Part 3
Old computers sometimes had a “Turbo” or “Boost” button to manually switch to a higher clock speed. Toggling this on and off could count as a valid game-playing strategy, if you needed to “speed past”…