Huh.

Did you know that the brown-backed scrub robin lives mostly in moist savanna? ...Neither did I until accidentally hitting Wikipedia's "Random Article" link led me here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown-backed_Scrub_Robin.

At least it knows me well, I guess?...

Moving On...

I finally went back to Gumdo last night. I was, unsurprisingly (or at least, unsurprisingly to me?) very, very nervous. And I did get my ass kicked by the drills - but much less than I expected. Did my arms ache after our foam-sword drills? Damned right they did. Was I worse off than anyone else in the class? No, amazingly enough, I wasn't... Which I didn't expect. In fact, I was probably better off, since I know as a fact I hit harder than most of them.

But I made it through class, and my ankle wasn't even too bad today. I'm getting used to wearing my ankle brace 18/7 (not while I'm sleeping), and it's not that bad. And I've proved class doesn't need to worry as much as I've been worrying.

Plus? I have my kagum now, and it makes me happy! It has a place of honour in the sword rack my wall along with my cane sword and Nina's dirk.

And other things? Well the MRI didn't go at all, but may work next time. And beyond that... ...Well, they're coming along. Ask me again tomorrow night and I'll tell you if I'm doing better.

Almost Done!

So Movember is almost over. My moustache is lovely, and I'll post more pictures of it soon, but really I'm happier about the attention that this process has brought to the cause - and, of course, the fundraising it managed as well. To all of you who gave donations, thanks! I love you all! To those of you who haven't, it's okay, I love you anyway, and I just hope you remember the cause.

There's still a little time left! Donate $5, donate $1, anything just to show you support cancer cure research! Even if you can't, pass it on to your friends and family! Let everyone know!

http://mobro.co/robintoll/

Thanks for a great Movember!

The state of the... I dunno, whatever.

The move is going well. The movers came Monday, and moved all the big stuff - the beds, the mattresses, the desk, the headboard, the TV, the entertainment center, the shelves, the 20-odd boxes and containers we had packed... They took almost exactly four hours, even gave us a break on the timing (since technically they count depot-to-depot, but actually charged us for the time they spent moving instead). Two really nice guys - John and Gary. It was mildly depressing to see just how little of the truck our stuff used, though... And this is *our* stuff, Nina's and mine and Aidan's.

We've made a number of trips since then also, and there's still a fair amount at the apartment to transfer. It's not like we're on a hard clock or anything - our lease doesn't expire until the 30th, and we're paid on rent. Jon, of course, told his new roommate she could start moving in tomorrow. It's very hard not to be grumpy about that. If she's moving in already, I can't help but feel she should be paying a portion of Nina and my's rent. But whatever... We still have a cupboard full of dry food, a couple of random things in the fridge/freezer, a number of Kitchen items (blender, collander somewhere, etcetera). Nina's computer, a whole crap-ton of pictures and artwork (in frames), several board games, at two or three computer monitor/small TVs. Technically, two air conditions and a wardrobe, though I kindof want to just leave them, since they're not useful to us. A bunch of garbage. Ugggggh. Definitely not going to be done tomorrow.

The whole thing is very stressful. I'm tired, frustrated, in pain, and sick of dealing with it. Moving sucks, but I suppose everyone knows that already. Or most of you.

I wonder how Jon's doing? He managed to get the utilities turned off today. I told him last week (Thursday or Friday?) I'd arranged to have the meter read to take it out of my name today, and that it'd be turned off if he didn't arrange to have it put into his. I told him again Saturday, and again yesterday. Today, I get there at like 10:30? And the power's off. He swears he called; but when he talked to them today, they told him they have no record of it.

He then says "Yeah, someone needs to be there tomorrow between 8 and 4 so they can come and turn it back on." And then he waits, expectantly. Eventually I realize he wants me to do it; which I refuse, immediately. I've got way the hell too much stuff going on to wait around for hours and fix the fuck-up that's either his or the utility's company.

And of course when all is said and done there's a crap-ton to do at the new place, also. Most of the stuff is moved over, but only a small percentage of it is put away yet. I mean, it's fine, we'll get it dealt with. Just... Imposing.

I finally got in to see the orthopedist, today. Official verdict? Possible mild strain, fallen arch, and early-onset arthritis. FML. Prescription for $400 orthotic inserts, cortisone shot, and a strong recommendation to wear my ankle brace more often.

All right. It's just about time to get in the car and get home, so good night.

YellowJaw

I'm typing this on Nina's bluetooth keyboard. It took waaaaay too much effort to sync (something about it having paired successfully in the past on a different device, but not this one, but the pairing config being copied over and not working?...), but now it's working. So I'm just testing it out.

Yes, typing on this - even though it's too small for my hands - is infinitely easier than typing on the iPad itself. At least there's feedback on this... I may have to steal it!

Game theory suggests current climate negotiations won’t avert catastrophe

Kinda interesting article (copied from http://www.sciencenews.org/index/generic/activity/view/id/346418/description/Math_Trek_Game_theory_suggests_current_climate_negotiations_won&%238364;(TM)t_avert_catastrophe, all rights to the author, no credit to me, etcetera etcetera):

Game theory suggests current climate negotiations won’t avert catastrophe
     
By Julie Rehmeyer
Web edition: November 13, 2012
So far, negotiators’ promises to reduce greenhouse gas production have been paltry and results paltrier, as both emissions and global temperatures have risen. A new game theoretic analysis published in the Oct. 23 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences both pinpoints why negotiations have accomplished so little and suggests how the parties might achieve better results.
Since 2009, climate treaty negotiations have focused on one value: 2 degrees Celsius. If the planet warms more than this, scientists have warned, catastrophic changes may result. So negotiators have agreed to the goal of staying under this threshold.
Some countries have pledged greenhouse gas emissions reductions of varying amounts by 2020, but the sum of all these pledges falls woefully short of what’s been projected as needed to meet this goal.
Scott Barrett and Astrid Dannenberg, both of Columbia University, wondered whether negotiators were wise to focus on a threshold like 2 degrees Celsius. So the researchers designed a game to analyze and experimentally test how a threshold affects negotiators’ behavior.
The scientists gave members of a 10-member group their country’s “treasure”: a 20-euro national savings account, plus a fund for spending on emissions reductions that consisted of 10 black chips worth 10 cents apiece and 10 red chips worth one euro apiece. Each person could then contribute any number of these chips to a common pool. The contributed chips represented greenhouse gas reduction strategies that were relatively inexpensive (black) or expensive (red). Players could communicate freely about their plans for how many chips they intended to contribute.
At the end, the participants cashed out their remaining chips and kept the proceeds, and each also received an extra payoff of five cents for every chip in the common pool. But if the pool didn’t contain at least 150 chips, catastrophe resulted: Each player lost 15 euros from the national savings account. (Only in game theory is the loss of 15 euros equivalent to the destabilization of the world’s climate.)
So imagine yourself in the game, and suppose that everyone else says that they’re contributing nothing to the common pool. Meeting the 150-chip threshold is hopeless then, so you’re best off contributing nothing yourself. At least the full value of your unspent chips will help offset the 15-euro penalty.
But now suppose everyone else promises to contribute 15 chips. Then you’ll be highly motivated to follow suit, because then the threshold will be met and you’ll avoid the 15-euro penalty.
Theoretical analysis showed that these two strategies were the only ones in which no one would want to change their own contribution if they knew exactly how much everyone else was contributing (such strategies are called “Nash equilibria”).
When the scientists tested the game out on real people, they found that the groups almost always managed to cooperate and meet the threshold. Hooray! Catastrophe averted, planet saved!
But then Barrett and Dannenberg changed the game to make it more like the real world. Scientists can’t certify that the climate will be destabilized the moment the world warms by more than 2 degrees. They just know that the chances are higher at that point. So the researchers made the exact location of the threshold in the game uncertain. Rather than catastrophe certainly occurring if the pool had fewer than 150 chips, the threshold was randomly chosen after the chips were in and varied between 100 and 200.
Now, Barrett and Dannenberg found, the planet was in big trouble. The problem was that players were motivated to cheat a bit. Suppose everyone else pledges 20 chips. You might easily be tempted to toss in only, say, 19 chips. Then the common pool would be 199 instead of 200, which gives only a 1-in-100 chance of catastrophe?—?but it ups your chances of walking away with an extra euro by 100 percent. As a result, the Nash equilibrium from the previous version in which everyone contributes 15 euros disappears, and the only strategy in which no one would change their contribution is the one in which no one contributes anything.
Tests with real people confirmed an inability to resist temptation: The players proposed that everyone pay enough to make catastrophe unlikely, but then they pledged a bit less than that. And when it came time to pony up, they contributed far less still. Every time, the planet broiled.
Unfortunately, this version of the game is much closer to the one the world is trapped in. “We’re playing an experiment with the entire planet, and we can’t be sure how it’s going to come out,” Barrett says. “It’s because of that that the negotiations are having so much difficulty.”
He argues that a more promising approach is to negotiate smaller agreements including only some countries or some greenhouse gases, and to use the threat of trade sanctions to enforce the agreements.

Finally!

So they finally added proper iPad support to the blogging app I like. That, I suppose, means there's actually an outside chance I'll * use* it. Not that I blog on my computer much... But then, hey, I never hear from people, so I assume "what's the point?"

Whatever. Maybe I'll post more drawings soon.

"In Flanders fields", by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie
         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0iilLWi24sI

(http://mobro.co/robintoll)

"I didn't vote for either.. I'm part of the roughly 5% who voted Libertarian... Full run.. every race that had a libertarian, that's who I voted for.. I have very little aside from disdain for the current (R) and (D) candidates... I don't think either one of them would do anything but strip more personal freedoms and civil liberties in either rubber stamping almost everything that seems to come from congress, or via executive order that simply ignores the law."

This... The ridiculous nature of this comment upsets me so much. The sheer ignorance of this astounds me. "every race that had a libertarian, that's who I voted for"? Did it matter who they were, what they believed in, or whether their platform even made sense?

Screw you. If you're going to vote, be smart enough to do it as a person and not a pre-paid number.

So one of the podcasts I subscribe to is "The Best of YouTube", and one of the most recent ones was a video with a voice-over of a lecture by Alan Watts. My attempt at a transcription is below, and the video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siu6JYqOZ0g

What makes you itch? What sort of a situation would you like? Let's suppose - I do this often in vocational guidance of students - they come to me and say well, ummm... We're getting out of college and we haven't the faintest idea what we want to do. So I always ask the question, "What would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life? Well, it's so amazing, as a result of our kind of educational system, crowds of students say, "Well, we'd like to be painters, we'd like to be poets, we'd like to be writers, but as everybody knows you can't earn any money that way." Another person says, "Well I'd like to live an out-of-doors life and ride horses." I say "Do you want to teach in a riding school? Uhhh, let's go through with it. What do you want to do?" When we've finally got down to something which the individual says that he really wants to do, I will say to him "You do that. And, umm, forget the money." Because if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living - that is to go on doing things you don't like doing. Which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way. And after all, if you do really like what you're doing - it doesn't matter what it is - you can eventually turn it, errr, you can eventually become a master of it. It's the only way to become a master of something. And then you'll be able to get a good fee for whatever it is. So I don't, don't worry too much, that's, everybody's, somebody's interested in everything. And anything you can be interested in, you'll find others. But it's absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don't like in order to go on spending things you don't like, doing things you don't like, and to teach your children to follow in the same track. See what we're doing is we're bringing up children and educating them to live the same sort of lives we're living. In order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life by bringing up their children to bring up their children to do the same thing, so it's all retch and no vomit - it never gets there. And so, therefore it's so important to consider this question: "What do I desire?"

He's someone I really wasn't familiar with until just the last couple of days, but I looked him up because he seemed so eminently sensible. I guess I react strongly, on an emotional level, to the above, while being highly uncertain how I feel on an intellectual level. I guess I need to sit down and consider it for a while. I dunno.

The Cane as a Weapon

So one of the other books I've gotten recently was a little ebook called "The Cane as a Weapon". It's only 80 pages long or something, and it's heavily illustrated making it even less to read, but it's fascinating to me. It was written by a man called A. C. Cunningham back in 1912. Mr. Cunningham, it turns out, was a civil engineer who worked for the navy... But also an avid fencer, being extremely active in one or more fencing clubs around the DC area and leading a team for a while. In 1902 he wrote a manual for the navy about sabre and bayonet fighting. And in 1912, he wrote a manual about defending oneself with the things a gentleman may be expected to carry - that is, a cane and at least sometimes a hat.

It goes through three stances, various attack and defense maneuvers, how to react to specific types of attacks (punches, kicks, slashes and stabs with a knife, dogs, guns, grappling...), and even lays out a series of little combinations to practice. Like... From a left guard: right high cut to right, left swinging cut to left, change guard forward, right high cut, recover. Or... From a double guard, right: With both hands, jab right with the butt, strike front with the point, jab rear with the point, strike left with the butt, recover.

I've read through the entire thing, and will go back and re-read pieces of it and pick up some of the exercises once I have a good cane to practice with... Which at the moment I don't.

Anyone recommend any nice, straight, hickory canes they know of?

President Nixon Rides Again!

Ball park announcer: "Who do you think will be the next president?"
Contestant: "Richard Nixon!"
Ball Park Announcer: "...All right. I wonder what colour you dream in."

House of the Sun

So I just finished reading the Nigel Findley Shadowrun Novel Collection, which I've read all of more than once before, but still I enjoyed. It was interesting - I payed a bit more attention this time than I have historically, I ended up feeling. Which is fine and all but occasionally disconcerting. The last book in the collection was "House of the Sun", about a Shadowrunner who goes to Hawaii (or Hawai'i, to be vaguely more correct) and gets involved in a bunch of stuff way over his head. It's an interesting book, in that frankly, he spends most of it whining about things being over his head and him just getting pushed from one thing to the next... While everyone around him seems to be begging him to use his influence to help fix events. He ends up trying to twist things to his own benefit (to recover his sister from a spirit that's inhabited her, actually, though it's played almost more like a cult)... But even though everything pretty much turns out well he ends the book alone and bitter and angry as all the things around him are getting better.

I ended up going back and forth in my head about whether or not I liked the writing, but either way, I could definitely appreciate the ending. I just like the fact that it's so atypical more than anything else, I guess.

Either way. It's an ending I can respect.

Renegades!

First game in like two seasons. Wheeeee...

Apparently, My Brother, My Brother and Me have started doing a mad-libs segment periodically, based on words submitted on Twitter, or something like that. The following was just too good to pass up posting:

It was another uncomfortably wet night in boner city, and I was as shitty as an incorporeal wiener. I'd just ordered another ice dong from the scabby bartender Usher, when I fractured my gaze on a hypertensious beauty across the bar. I made my way over facetiously. "Pardon my genocide", I defenstrated, "but you have the most erect mandible I have ever floundered."
"Oh? Is that an aardvark in your flibbertygibbet or are you just bonered to bogart me?" she ruminated.
"Let's ping-pong this prestidigitation and get down to tomfoolery," I rocketed. "What's your name, fiddlesticks?"
"Bunnyhug Geronimo," she said with a wedding on her face, "and you?"
"Maverick. Maverick Fleshdaddy." And with that we climbed onto my laser cone and cudgeled all night long.

Am I the only one who thinks that "Tiny Feet MacKillam Saves The Day!" is a great title for a children's book? I have no idea what kind of terrible catastrophe his tiny feet would make him uniquely suited to overcome (except the Great Scottish Shoe Famine of 1842), but still. I'm sitting here giggling over this idea.

A Small Update

I haven't spoken with a lot of people in a while, I guess. I didn't really think about it much until just recently, but it sortof struck me. It's not that I've been hiding, per se; it's that I simply haven't been active. I mean, geez, barely any updates since October? I can only assume noone reads this any more... And yet more than likely a handful of you are subscribed to this and will see it. And that idea pleases me slightly. So, in the spirit of openness and nostalgia and whatnot, things that have been going on in my life. Not necessarily in order, but vaguely close to it.

I have a girlfriend - Nina - and even though it's vaguely silly, I still consider her "new". We went on our first date the day after Thanksgiving last year, and we've been night inseparable ever since. I guess that makes it our six-month anniversary this weekend, while we're camping? Huh. I hadn't noticed that before. Aidan loves her, my parents like her, my ex-wife likes her (or at least that's what she told me today), and things are going well. She moved in a week and a half ago... Which is funny mostly because she was essentially de facto living here for quite a bit of time before that, and we decided to formalize it mostly because it was a little silly to be paying $650 + cable/internet/utilities for what was essentially a (slightly) oversized storage closet. We're in the process of trying to find someone to sublet her old place now.

I moved at the beginning of December - from Troy into the outskirts of Albany proper. I'm now almost on top of where I work (about a 5 minute commute), and much closer to a lot of other things. Definitely an interesting shift in perspective. The new place is a three-bedroom - I'm paying for a second bedroom which is Aidan's, and my roommate - Jon - is in the third. (Now, of course, there's the second roommate, but that's neither here nor there) It's nicely spacious, hardwood floors, big windows for lots of light, front and back balconies... Generally a nice place. The water pressure is a touch low, the wiring is not awesome (and probably not up to code), the house is old and has settled a bit and the floors aren't perfectly level, the stairs up are a bit narrow and with a sharp turn at the bottom, and it's apparently surprisingly hard to get a cross-wind through it to cut the heat some... But it's still actually a very nice place. And under $900 a month, which isn't shabby. The three cats and a dog certainly keep it things from being too calm, as well.

I got promoted at work, and am no longer a software developer/engineer; now, I'm an architect. Instead of doing coding and actual low-level development, I make planning and design decisions, specify architecture, write specs and processes, go to more meetings in a week than I previously often went to in a month, and generally help shape the development policy of my company's web presence quite a bit. Of the four application architects, I'm the one who specializes on front-end, web site, secure portal, and web service development (pretty much what I was working on as a developer before the promotion). A hell of a lot more responsibility, but a lot more power to go along with it, and the pay hike isn't something I'm likely to complain about.

I started doing martial arts at the end of January. I'm doing a Korean art called Haidong Gumdo, which is a Korean sword art based loosely on ancient battlefield tactics. It uses a similar weapon to Japanese styles like Kendo (the Jingum is similar to a Katana, with the primary difference being a thinner but wider blade). It's good exercise and a great deal of fun. My yellow belt test is actually tomorrow, which is quite exciting.

I got a new car - a Nissan Rogue. There's a picture of him a couple of posts back. He's coming up on his first oil change some time in the next couple of weeks - with camping for Memorial Day weekend, maybe even next week. His rear window is small, he's not huge as SUVs go, and I'm still trying to get used to parking and be within the legal 1 foot of the curb more than half the time... But he's easily the best car I've ever owned. Comfortable, pleasant to drive, functional, and generally a very good purchase.

The last update - honestly, probably not as major, but definitely the largest in my mind since it really hit me today - is my health. In early April in Gumdo class, I came very close to blacking out; no real warning except tunnel vision, just suddenly was not staying upright. Went and looked into it and found out that my blood pressure was spiking. Partially related to the diagnosis of that, I found out that I also have a severe depression of some hormones and proteins in my blood (At this time I have no idea if the two symptoms are related, though the diagnoses were). I went through a fairly large number of tests - various blood tests, bits of lab work. Because one possible cause of depressed hormone levels is something affecting the pituitary, I was prescribed an MRI, which is when I found out I'm more than a touch claustrophobic - the most severe panic attack I've ever had hit me as they were sliding me into that frigging deathtrap. I eventually did get one done last week at an open MRI place (better, if only because my shoulders don't touch the sides of the damned machine), and got the results today. So at this time I'm having blood pressure spikes (onset 2-4 months ago, cause unknown, controlled by medication); depressed hormone levels (onset 6-16 months ago, cause unknown, just started replacement therapy to control it); and a small indentation on the side of my pituitary gland coinciding with what may or may not be an extremely small tumor - as in, whatever the radiologist saw was around 3mm in size, and he wasn't willing to commit to what it was (being ignored until a 6-month follow-up to see whether its size is stable). That last piece, by the way, I've spent the day having a very good panic over.

So... Yeah. My life in a nutshell and a couple hundred or couple thousand words. I do hope this finds any of you who read it well, and that I'll hear from you soon - because I may be terrible at keeping in contact some months, but I still feel better hearing from you all.

Why does noone believe me this shortbread dough tastes a little odd? It's like the butter was sour or something.

Also, mint shortbread sounds awesome to me. My mother needs to stop being difficult...

My new car - dubbed, apparently, Humphrey Godzilla Mistoffelees.

Don't ask.

It drives really nicely, though, seriously. I like him a great deal.

It was really satisfying to come upstairs to my desk this morning and be noticeably less winded than I have been in the past. Not all the way there - just starting, really - but noticeable progress. Go me.