blimix | Network

It looks like the section of computer science that Connor was signed up for got cancelled? And he didn't get reassigned or notified?

I caught it just now. His advisor had caught it a few days ago and sent an email that Connor didn't see until he searched his mailbox just now.

Classes start Wednesday.

Current Mood: frustrated

rmc28

So, the tenth anniversary of my diagnosis with leukaemia happened earlier this week. I usually celebrate my survival on 1 October each year, but I'd wondered a few months ago about having a party in actual summer.

In the end I didn't organise anything for this weekend because I had a hockey game with Warbirds yesterday. This morning I took Nico to Clip n Climb, and this afternoon I met Rosie for a public skate and then we had ice creams in the sunshine. On my way back to my bike (locked by the rink) I ran into a couple of people and sorted out a few things relating to Kodiaks and next weekend's Draft Tournament in Biarritz.

Also the announcement has just gone out that I'm captaining one of the teams in Biarritz, and I'm off work now for nearly two weeks.

... and actually all of that adds up to a fantastic "up yours cancer, you didn't kill me", even without throwing a party.

Take it away, Elton:

Watch on YouTube

kareila

Yesterday I drove Connor to campus so that we could scout out all of his classrooms. It was hot as balls out but we paced ourselves, and the buildings themselves were all air conditioned. I also showed him where to find Robby's office (although we couldn't enter the building without him), investigated places to camp out with a laptop in the main campus library, and had him buy me lunch with his meal card.

Today I went to the local used book store for their Penny-a-Page sale. I knowwwwwwwww I don't need more books, but I do need more adventure in my life and it was cheaper than a trip to the beach or IKEA. Besides, the sale limit was 5 books, so I couldn't get into too much trouble. I ended up with about $65 worth of used books for something like $17 plus tax, so it was worth it.

I also put in an online order for some D&D sourcebooks as a birthday treat. I was hoping to get the new Artificer supplement, but it's been delayed from August to December.

Lately I've been rereading the first three Greta Helsing books in order to refresh my memory before catching up on the final installments. My pile of library books is down from 18 to a slightly more manageable 12, although some of them are very large.

Current Mood: okay

rmc28

In news that shocks no-one, especially not me, I didn't actually manage to watch the streaming Twelfth Night in the two week window. I had two windows in my calendar and I spent them on other things, woe is me.

( ice hockey )

Charles and I went to see the reissue of Princess Mononoke in the cinema - in the IMAX screen - yesterday evening. I haven't watched it in many years but it holds up, still very beautiful. Some scenes I'd never forgotten but other parts surprised me all over again.

From the film I went to a goodbye party for two of the cricketers for a couple of hours. I left the party for ice hockey practice, and was briefly tempted to message the partiers when I came out of the rink at 1am to see if they were still going but actually by the time I got home and showered I just wanted to sleep.

(I have been added to the casual Saturday afternoon cricket groupchat. I am still very bad at cricket, especially at bowling, and have no kit. I could turn up anyway I guess.)

staranise

😔 Another month when I have to ask for help with rent again. (My landlord lets me split it into two payments, but uh the second payment is coming up fast)

A GoFundMe for keeping my business (and me) afloat.

flwyd

Google has several mailing lists where a very specific type of humor is considered on-topic. One of my favorite is dedicated to filk, parody lyrics to popular songs. I've archived my humorous songwriting and poetry, some of which has appeared previously on this blog. And of course I had to write a song about my own departure.

Current Mood: quixotic
Current Location: Google Boulder
Current Music: Grateful Dead - Cassidy

kareila

Even though the new bookshelves are upstairs and I spend most of my time downstairs, it does make me happy to have all of my books out of boxes again. It might even be a good thing that I'm not among them constantly, so that they don't become ignored in the background of daily life, but give me a fresh thrill of pleasure every time I see them.

As long as I can remember, I've loved to read and re-read, and collected as many books and magazines as I could. (Music too, but listening to music is a less tangible experience.) I spent a lot of my twenties and thirties trying to recall and track down books that I loved as a kid, but never owned. I still enjoy reading books that are intended for young people.

When I started college 32 years ago, the internet began to take up most of that book-shaped space in my free time, and although I never stopped buying books, I gradually stopped reading them as often. I started up again once my kids were born, but I've never caught up. Now I can only hope that I live long enough to read at least most of the ones I own, but new books come out every week that distract me from my backlog.

Thirty years is a long time, and I know there are some books that I own that I probably wouldn't enjoy reading now, or would have to read in the context of when they were written. But it's hard to know which ones will disappoint me just from glancing at the covers. I want to give them all a chance!

Then there's the family to consider. A lot of the books that I own and haven't read are ones that Robby has, like the Wheel of Time series. The kids have their own separate collections. I don't know if they'll ever be that interested in reading most of my books, although they have enjoyed some of my favorites, like Hitchhiker's Guide, Wrinkle in Time, and Watership Down. Will's favorite book of all time is the Westing Game, and Connor adores Howl's Moving Castle. But they also have a ton of Wimpy Kid, Minecraft, et al that were marketed to them as they were growing up, and I doubt whether they'll want to hang onto those indefinitely.

My mom has a huge book collection as well (this is one way you can tell we are related) but unlike me, she has already read almost every book she owns. She keeps bringing me new ones and then I feel bad for not getting around to reading them.

I don't know if I have a point to make here, I think I'm just trying to talk myself into being okay with having so many books. I hope that I will be able to read most of them eventually.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Lo-Fi Chill on Apple Music

kareila

( Ingredients... )

( Instructions... )

Source: https://preppykitchen.com/carrot-and-walnut-cake/

Current Mood: pleased

kareila

One day last May, apropos of nothing in particular, our DM happened to mention to me in chat that at some point he had prepared a one-shot storyline based on the movie Hackers. My response to that was: "Ok well now I know what I want for my birthday."

So today it came to pass that our intrepid group of adventurers teamed up with a band of rogues who bore more than a passing resemblance to the heroes of that movie, and mayhem ensued. It was great!

On top of that, the baker in our party made a birthday cake that looked like the head of Wally the Red Sox mascot. She's fantastically talented and I was blown away. Unbeknownst to me, Robby had bought a small pack of those plastic ball caps that they use for ice cream in order to use one as a cake topper, but they also happened to be the perfect size to fit on the head of my crocheted steel defender, so now he has yet another hat (I also have made him at various points over the past year-plus a sun hat, a pirate hat and a Santa hat).

It's all very silly and I can't stop smiling.

Current Mood: happy

ursula

At seven days post-Paxlovid, I am reasonably confident in saying that I'm going to be at Worldcon! I look forward to seeing some of you there.

Thursday, Aug 14th

Poetry Readings Thursday
1:30 pm - 2:30 pm
Room 445-446

Reading: Ursula Whitcher
3:30 pm - 4:00 pm
Room 428

Interstellar Flight Press reading
7 PM
Seattle Beer Company, 1427 Western Ave

Friday, Aug 15th

Queering History
10:30 am - 11:30 am
Room 423-424

Poetry in World-building
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Room 433-434

Saturday, Aug 16th

Science Non-Fiction (Poetry)
10:30 am - 11:30 am
Room 447-448

Hugo Awards
8:30 PM
Ballroom 1, fifth floor

Sunday, Aug 17th

By the Numbers: Mathematics in Science Fiction
9:00 am - 10:00 am
Room 334

kareila

via

sholio

( Read more... )

I don't think I stopped watching the new ones as they came out because of the storytelling - I mean, how would I know if I haven't seen them? But because 2020 happened, and we just stopped going to movies for a while, and everything was on Disney Plus for "when we got around to it" which we never seem to. Which is the case for most things in my life, not just MCU stuff. *shrug* A new MCU movie just wasn't An Event any more, like it used to be up through Endgame. And there are some I want to see but I feel like I have to do my homework first, like finishing Wandavision before seeing Multiverse of Madness, and watching Wakanda Forever before getting into Ironheart.

I do own almost all the ones that I've seen on DVD. I even have a DVD of Spider-Man: No Way Home that I haven't watched yet.

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Red Sox game

flwyd

Yesterday I announced that I am leaving Google through the Voluntary Exit Program offered to my division. I don't think I've cried this much in one week since I was a kid. I hadn't been intending to leave just yet, and I'm going to miss a lot of people and activity very dearly. But my tenure level means I'll get nearly a year's worth of salary to not work, which sounds to me a whole lot like a year of paid vacation.

I know that I was pretty well regarded at Google (I've made more memes than any human at Google, and I've got a colorful reputation in the Boulder office). But I didn't expect over 1,700 people to follow the link to my farewell essay in the first 24 hours. I've gotten dozens of email and chat and meme comment replies to my message, and my farewell message seems to have resonated with a lot of my colleagues. It makes me cry and smile at the same time.

When Google's first large-scale layoffs happened in January of 2023, I was pretty upset. All these people suddenly disappeared, and I couldn't say goodbye to them. And imagining what I would feel in that situation, I would be totally distraught to leave without being able to tell everyone what was on my mind and share a moment with each other one last time. I doubt I'd get a better opportunity to leave on a high note, so here I go into the unknown. In 2009 I quit my job with a plan to travel for the summer, which was a great experience. This time I haven't had any time to make plans beyond what I already had in place—I'm driving to Burning Man on what would be my last day—but after 15 years at a high-growth tech company I've got enough time to both plan some adventures and then have them.

As time goes on, I'll share some more reflections about my time at Google, the changing techno-social landscape, and whatever else is on my mind. For all the Googlers who are now following me via RSS, welcome to my blog and keep doing excellent work.

Current Mood: quixotic
Current Location: Boulder, Colorado
Current Music: Pink Floyd–Shine On You Crazy Diamond

rmc28

Work's "Active Staff" programme through the university sports centre is mostly dormant in August, but has just acquired a regular "give it a go" session for women's football on Thursday afternoons. (Hmm, I wonder what recent event might have prompted such a thing ...) Unfortunately this session clashes exactly with my favourite free exercise class, which has just rebranded from "yogalates" to "stretch and relax".

One of these activities will help my knee mobility and one of them is highly likely to mess up my knees further. Much as I want to be as tough as Lucy Bronze, I regretfully skipped the football and stuck with the stretches.

rmc28

Books on pre-order:

Queen Demon (Rising World 2) by Martha Wells (7 Oct 2025)

Books acquired in July:

and read:
1. Moonlighter by Sarina Bowen
2. Grown Wise (Liminal Mysteries) by Celia Lake
and unread:
1. Death by Candlelight (Adam and Eve Mysteries 1) by Emma Davies
2. The Little Cottage on the Hill (Little Cottage 1) by Emma Davies

Books acquired previously and read in July:

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine [2][Sep 2024]

Borrowed books read in July:

Once Upon You and Me by Timothy Janovsky
You Had Me At Happy Hour by Timothy Janovsky
Cover Story by Mhairi McFarlane
One-Touch Pass (SCU Hockey 4) by J.J. Mulder [8]
The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
Fourth Wing (Empyrean 1) by Rebecca Yarros [2]

Rereads in July:

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine [2]

I continue to enjoy all of Celia Lake's books, and I still adore the Teixcalaan books by Arkady Martine, whether reading or listening to them. Stuart Turton wrote the entirely gripping groundhog-day country house murder mystery, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, and I found The Last Murder at the End of the World another very gripping science-fictional murder mystery, this time in weird post-apocalyptic flavour.

Fourth Wing is a massive fantasy tome (21 hours of audiobook!) about a lethal military college for aspiring dragonriders, which piles a great many tropes onto some rather wonky worldbuilding. It is very entertaining and I can see why it is hugely popular. I am part way through the even more massive sequel and I regret nothing.

[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book
[4] Crowdfunding
[5] Goodbye read
[6] Cambridgeshire Reads/Listens
[7] FaRoFeb / FaRoCation / Bookmas / HRBC
[8] Prime Reading / Kindle Unlimited

kareila

I tripped and fell into another library book sale and now my TBR list is up to almost 800. I took all of their Steven Brust and half of their Heinlein at 50 cents each.

Connor picked out a book by Haruki Murakami although he's still working his way through his last book sale purchase, One Hundred Years of Solitude, as well as an online copy of Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. I'm still bemused by his taste in reading material.

Current Mood: dorky

adrian_turtle

I have remarkably strong opinions about airports, considering how seldom I travel. Heathrow does several things right. Their line management is excellent; better than anything I've seen in the US. Chalk one up to national stereotypes.

They have what they call "repacking stations" right before security. Those are little places to step out of line, put your carry on bag on a table and rearrange things. It's like they know you want things packed differently when you're standing in line for half an hour (perhaps managing small children), or when you're proving everything fits in a standard-size bag, than when you need to dump your water bottle and display your toiletries and electronics and empty your pockets. So they put the stations after the line, as well as setting them a bit aside so people can do that rearranging without blocking traffic. I'm not sure what you call the people who do this kind of work (it's not exactly urban design or wayfinding), but somebody did a very good job.

Then security itself. Gevalt. You take one of those plastic bins, put your bag and coat and shoes and everything you were supposed to take out of your bag into it, and shove it from the table onto the conveyor belt. (Fortunately, they allow you to get help, because it's a hard shove at an awkward angle.) After they come out of the scanner, the bins continue on the conveyor belt and you pick up your bags. Travelers are supposed to pick up the empty bins and put them on the stack of empty bins a few inches away. This is extraordinarily bad design, socially and physically. Everyone in that line is picking up a bag, usually a bag + a coat + a little quart bag of liquids. Until very recently, they were also picking up their shoes and looking around for a place to put them on. What hands were they supposed to use to pick up the bin? It's only a few inches, but you can't just slide it over with your elbow or hip; you have to pick it up before sliding it over to where it drops onto the stack. As I was putting on my belt and reloading my pockets, one of the airport workers came by with her arms full of bins and called us all rude, bad people for not putting our bins away.

kareila

Since 1999 or so I had been maintaining a Perl script that would run every morning to download new images for as many as 20 different comic strips and combine them all into one daily digest web page. Over the years the strips have dropped off one by one, either because I lost interest or because I started following them on my DW reading page instead.

Inertia has kept that setup running for this long, but lately the old Mac mini that I was running the script on has been dropping off the network every few weeks, which means it will miss several days until I notice and reselect my network from the WiFi menu. (Not just that machine; I've also noticed these dropouts happening with the downstairs thermostat and the autonomous vacuum cleaner, which are even more annoying to reset. Maybe it's affecting devices that only use 802.11b?)

When I went to fix it again just now, I noticed that it was only successfully still keeping up with 3 comic strips, 2 of which I didn't really care about any more. I added the other to my DW list, and now I'm done. After 26 years.

The one I'm still keeping is Kevin & Kell, which turns 30 next month. Which means it started when I was 20. So, yeah.

After turning that job off, I realized I only had one other automated script still left running on that machine, which was backing up the DW wiki files once a week... the wiki that got retired last month because

mark moved it to Github. So I turned that one off too.

I guess it's the end of an era.

Current Mood: nostalgic

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Joe

Yvelheim

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Some cool folks

Network

of course nothing is simple

Ten years

more of the same

Events of note

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Google Filk Songs

various book thoughts

Preppy Kitchen Carrot Cake Recipe

more D&D shenanigans (now with cake)

worldcon schedule

MCU meme

Funemployment rate rising

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To-read pile, 2025, July

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