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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

  • Random Amphibian Encounter

    I certainly wasn’t expecting to cross paths with a frog on the way home this afternoon.

    A frog with a mottled green-and-brown-and-gray color pattern perched on a damp sidewalk after a springtime rain shower, possibly contemplating the dandelions.

    Little critter was just minding its business, hanging out on the sidewalk along the very, very busy 185th Street. I almost didn’t notice it in time to stop and take some pictures. As it is, I had to use the digital zoom on my phone to get anything decent. The moment I crept a bit closer to try for a shot with better detail, sproing! Off they went, back under the bramble and toward the creek.

    Absolutely the highlight of my day, I tell you what.

  • A Hot Mess Of A Site

    Post tagged:

    Yes, I’m tinkering again. Now that I know how to make a 2-column layout in WordPress Twenty Twenty Five, I have done so. Too bad all the older stuff I used to rely upon is dead. (I mean, yes, technically I could force “classic” widgets and layouts… but for how much longer? Probably not very.)

    I’m not 100% happy with it yet but at least I have the calendar and links back, even if I have to do the links “by hand” because having the link categories configured in WordPress itself is absolutely obsolete now. Progress. Or something.

    Also, the sidebar RSS widget for bringing in my “fediverse” content won’t be coming back because the “new” widget looks awful and can’t be customized the way I need it.

    At this point I’m tempted to jump ship from WP but… I still want to be self-hosted, and what else is out there which isn’t too minimalist, is widely supported and rich with features, and will run on OpenLiteSpeed? Ha ha. Fun times.

  • When The Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

    But what if the moon really was made of cheese?

    That’s an absurd premise, indeed. When you stop to think about it, though, most of the “what if” ideas that launch us into science fiction stories are absurd. We’re probably never getting to travel to whatever point in the past or future we want to at the press of a button. We’re probably not going to hurtle through interplanetary space at speeds above that achieved by photons of light. And so on. While many “what if” stories dig into the technical mechanics of the thing, they usually also shine a light on what people would (or at least might) do when faced with this new element in society. What might time travel or FTL space travel do to “us”? Oh, and make sure to include some actual-science-y stuff because those nerdy details are fun to speculate about, of course.

    But what if we threw out any need to dig into the high-tech gee-whiz of it all and replaced that aspect with… well, Cheez Whiz?

    Cover artwork for the John Scalzi novel, "When The Moon Hits Your Eye", consisting mostly of the author name and title above an illustration of a space-suited astronaut standing on a rounded surface made of cheese.

    What we’re left with is the human angle, and that’s what this novel is all about.

    (more…)

  • Winter Anime 2025 (Nearly Over)

    Post tagged:

    A couple months ago I noted some shows that had caught my interest. Now that the season’s almost complete I have some additional thoughts to jot down about a few of them.

    Anime screenshot: Alina from "I May Be A Guild Receptionist But I'll Solo Any Boss To Clock Out On Time" in her work uniform.

    The news is mostly good. But only mostly.

    (more…)

  • Satisfactory: Spiraling Into Control

    Post tagged:

    To be clear: There are videos on YouTube which can show you how to do this, but I don’t like scrolling back and forth through a video to tease out the details of a process. If you’re like me in that regard, here’s a tutorial for making a single-track train spiral structure in Satisfactory.

    Satisfactory video game screenshot: In the desert, a railway spiral to nowhere stands in mute testament to the author's desire to craft a proper tutorial document.

    Note that you can (and should) play around with materials and other design elements. Maybe you want sign-based lighting on yours? Sweet, go for it!

    Let’s get started.

    (more…)

  • Macross Delta at Not Quite The Midpoint

    Post tagged:

    A friend showed the first episode of franchise installment Macross Delta during “anime night” some time ago and I thought, hey, I should buy this on Blu Ray. So I did. And I’m working my way through the series… slowly. A couple episodes at a time.

    Because that’s about all I can really take, honestly.

    Please welcome your standard-issue flyboy protagonist with dangerously unkempt hair, everyone.

    I’m eleven episodes in. I have some thoughts.

    (more…)

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