<a href="https://smidgeo.com/notes/deathmtn">deathmtn</a>

5/30/2024, 3:01:36 PM

The room in the basement I work in during the summer is lit by a bare light bulb on the ceiling. I noticed during a Zoom call that it looked like it projects a vertical beam straight down. But bulbs obviously project in all directions, so that didn't quite make sense.

I made a guess that sunlight coming in from the basement window crosses the light it projects downward and that intersection is picked up by the laptop camera. But that also seemed dubious.

So, I turned off the bulb and saw three vertical beams stemming from the window in the other room behind me. Was that the actual source of the beam?

No. When I turned the bulb back on, there was a single beam, clearly intersecting the bulb.

So the bulb is clearly the source but the mystery of why the camera picks up a vertical beam remains!
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5/29/2024, 11:29:59 PM

The guy got his yellow belt at judo today. While he doesn’t yet have a tournament win, he is “in the game” so to speak and does not get smoked. He has a fairly broad technique repertoire in addition to now being able to read opponents to a degree. (Most of his successful throws are counters. I’m not sure I’ve seen him just get a grip, set something up, then throw at a tournament.)

This is just way way more than I expected in nine months. Probably because he’s related to us, he doesn’t find any other physical activity compelling so far. I thought, well, maybe he’ll tolerate it like he did with swimming for a while.

The belt will have to last him for a while. I think the green belts are all at least 14, and the orange belts look like they’re 12 or so. (And they are about as skilled as adult brown belts, which makes sense because many of them have been practicing for six years.) If you’re under nine, though, you can get a new white belt with a different color of stripe every few months!

I’m ambivalent about belts for motivation. On one hand, why not? It does get kids — and many adults — to keep doing difficult workouts.

On the other, does everything really have to be ranked?In Japan, Korea, and probably a lot of other countries, there are no colored belts. There’s just black belts and white belts. So, judo is just a thing you do, like playing piano. But there’s motivation compensation in the form of it being a known regular thing in those cultures, like piano or football, with famous champions and all of that stuff. And, like, judo college where you spar three hours a day.
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5/29/2024, 3:32:51 PM

Findings from the Architectural Licensing Seminar booklet on the new Small Findings!
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5/29/2024, 2:07:17 PM

Seoul says North Korea is dropping balloons filled with ‘filth and garbage’

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Seoul also released images of large white balloons carrying bags, as well as of rubbish from one of the balloons strewn over a highway in a western district of the South Korean capital. According to unverified media reports in South Korea, some of the bags contained animal faeces.

…

Pyongyang has long denounced South Korea for allowing activists to launch balloons into the North carrying items ranging from anti-regime leaflets and electronic devices to medication and Bibles.

The practice was banned by Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s former left-wing president, but was tolerated under the country’s current conservative administration until the ban was scrapped altogether last year by South Korea’s constitutional court.
This is a low bar, but at least they're not nuclear payloads.
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5/29/2024, 10:23:17 AM

This episode of Science Quickly says that mowing less often gives plants more time to seed and flower and that not raking provides food and shelter for animals. Validated!
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5/29/2024, 8:36:09 AM

Roombas are now on the old tech report beat.
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5/29/2024, 8:23:58 AM

X gonna give it to ya, abstractly
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5/29/2024, 8:20:52 AM

I think climbing gyms are replacing golf courses as the go-to business leisure activity, at least among software engineers.

Maybe that’s why they have it at school now. These kids are going to be networking masters!
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5/28/2024, 9:12:54 PM

I guess it is obvious that tornadoes are terrifying, but until I saw this video of a tornado from a couple of days ago, I couldn't actually picture how unusual and unnerving winds that strong are.
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5/28/2024, 6:29:53 PM

USA
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5/28/2024, 2:37:13 PM

The theoretical ultimate composer!
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5/28/2024, 9:36:56 AM

This copy of Senet from 3,000 years ago somehow looks like a game Kickstarted fifteen years ago. That is Craftsmanship!

Its score on BGG is only 5.8, though. Try harder, ancient Egpytian board game designers!
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5/28/2024, 9:28:21 AM

Junior calisthenics, four pull-ups. Still not sure if I really feel something in my trapezius rather than imagining it, but I'm going to take the slow ramp up, regardless.
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5/27/2024, 11:26:08 PM

I've tried three game jams in the last three months. I only got one to be (just very barely) playable, but I've kept working on the other two. I don't know if they'll ever ship, but I am enjoying working on them a bit at a time, which I don't remember happening with any other game project.

The latest bug I fixed was about crate pushing. The guy (he's represented with a placeholder blob sprite) used to just shove crates away. Now he steps into the space formerly occupied by the crate. It feels more chill that way.
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5/27/2024, 8:48:17 PM

For whatever reason, I often think about Smidgeo in the grocery store. Today, I thought about the concept of Smidgemame — edamame shells for skerpin’.
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5/27/2024, 5:49:23 PM

Junior calisthenics, three pull-ups. Maybe tomorrow I can do four without feeling vaguely weird in the shoulder.

Another idea for injury recovery times: Maybe I could do junior calisthenics three times a day.
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5/27/2024, 4:24:36 PM

Wily does this kung fu movie bad guy thing where she starts a fight because someone made eye contact.
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5/27/2024, 3:04:13 PM

During the last 1.5 hours of multiplayer Spelunky, they've all been standing up the whole time. The shouting and stomping has not let up. THE SHOPKEEPER'S DEAD! HELP ME WITH THE SNAKE
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5/27/2024, 1:20:35 PM

The guy's friends are over. We have a bunch of mulitplayer video games and board games. They've chosen to watch him play Shiren and are yelling as he chooses dialog options during the intro?
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5/27/2024, 10:36:07 AM

You know it’s not all good times and pasvragen, but I can’t help get the inpresssion from De Mol, through its really good casting, that the Flanders region of Netherlands is filled with really nice, cosmopolitan people. Katt and I sometimes quarter-joke about moving there, a sentiment just slightly more serious than living under the sea.

But no, of course not. It’s a real country with real people. For the first time, the Flemish far-right Vlaams Belang is expected to become the largest party with 26 of 150 seats in the federal parliament, and is polling first at around 26 per cent in Flanders.

Though Vlaams Belang talks a lot about secession, the article says most of their would-be voters don’t care about that. I guess they’re into the other right wing values.

All that said, in the US, Vlaams Belang would probably get 49-51% of the vote.
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5/26/2024, 9:54:51 PM

The guy worked on The King’s Salary riddle with the help of all of this stuff. Minor spoiler: It’s an accidental grim parable about voting and short-sightedness.
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5/26/2024, 6:25:35 PM

The guy continues to enjoy transposing things to be extra low.
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5/26/2024, 6:22:24 PM

The groundhog has come back several times this weekend despite having been shooed off several times. All the animals are ON right now. The ants, birds, and groundhog are extra wired.
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5/26/2024, 3:45:27 PM

I'm still playing Animal Well, though about twice a week. I'm still playing it, but slowly. It has a rich world to explore that is weird and very cool-looking, but every time I do a jumping puzzle that takes ten attempts, I have to put it down for a while. I guess age has reduced my platforming appetite.
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5/26/2024, 2:52:08 PM

We found a snake in the Fells! I accidentally freaked it out a couple times.
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