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

10/30/2025, 6:55:35 PM

Nanotyrannus! Small, but with long arms. That is marketing genius, evolution.
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10/30/2025, 6:04:33 PM

Onions onions onions
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10/30/2025, 2:51:10 PM

Miraculously, I finally got the metronome I got from Goodwill to work. It came with the escapement out of place, and I could not assemble it so that it would stay after closing the case.

So, I sawed a gap into the case near the winder so that I could assemble the internal parts outside, then just push it into the case without having to angle the escapement (and thereby mess it up).
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10/30/2025, 1:51:35 PM

I’ve been using the Subway technique of putting oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and oregano on my sandwiches. It’s very effective. Those sandwich artists know what they’re doing.
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10/30/2025, 7:50:20 AM

Russian leader Vladimir Putin claimed his nation conducted a successful flight of a nuclear-powered cruise missile. Here’s how that missile might work

Slow, but if it is shot down, its reactor could cause radiation poisoning.
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10/30/2025, 7:29:50 AM

Earlier in the day, officials flattered Mr. Trump during public events. Mr. Lee presented him with a medal symbolizing the nation’s highest honor. Then came a replica of a golden crown that was excavated from one of the ancient royal tombs in Gyeongju, the seat of a long-gone kingdom. “I’d like to wear it right now,” Mr. Trump said.
Tactics you’d use on small children are sadly effective here.
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10/30/2025, 7:22:05 AM

The death toll from yesterday's police operation in Rio de Janeiro rises to at least 132 people.
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10/30/2025, 6:53:20 AM

A scenario to think about now: What are we going to do about ICE hanging around the polls?
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10/29/2025, 7:00:00 AM

“In many ways, Trump administration officials are trying to use these online motifs to smuggle concepts that would otherwise be too extreme for the American people. Most Americans do not want to ‘destroy’ legal asylum seekers. And referring to this group of people as a ‘flood’ is the sort of thing that was once the domain of white-nationalist manifestos. But tie these things together with an image of Master Chief and a Halo Warthog, and the inconceivable becomes a casual joke,” Brooking said.
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10/29/2025, 12:33:02 AM

There's not much progress happening in The World, but there is a little bit of progress happening in my judo game, as I'm sure you're thrilled to know.

I didn't throw anyone with kouchi gari tonight, but I did actually cause opponents to misstep with it. That's a huge, uh, step for me because usually my timing is way off.

I was also able to land a sode tsurikomi goshi, though I lost my balance and landed on the opponent, which I need to avoid for safety's sake. It is very rare for me to learn a throw one week then actually throw someone — even a white belt — in randori with it the next week.

It has always struck me as counterintuitive, but it turns out to be way easier to close the distance after you've pulled someone's arm out of the way. It's also nice that I don't have to carefully time torso contact the way you have to with seoinage or uchimata.

Finally, I was able to do four rounds of randori with one break, and I wasn't dying by the end. I was definitely very tired, but I was still able to think about what to do and to try to do it. So, the conditioning is coming along a little, too.
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10/28/2025, 6:18:33 PM

Spotify has been broadcasting ICE recruitment ads for a couple of weeks now. If you haven't canceled your subscription already because of their funding of Joe Rogan and/or their completely unnecessary moves to pay artists even less, you should do it now. Here is how you cancel.

Apple Music and YouTube Music are ways you can go if you don't want to just pay for mp3s like I do. I wouldn't be surprised if just watching YouTube with uBlock worked fine, too.
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10/28/2025, 6:01:06 PM

Hey, C++ lets you initialize all types of variables with {} and apparently has for fourteen years!
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10/28/2025, 5:52:10 PM

I finally finished my application for the Massachusetts Grant for Creative Individuals. I had a really hard time writing the 1500-character artist narrative. Both getting started and getting it down to 1500 characters took a while.

And then I found it hard to capture video of web pages. Thanks, Linux.

The further I got into it, the more I realized I'm likely not the kind of artist they're looking for. Several times during the narrative, I had to watch out for sounding too much like a science explainer, which I am only a little bit. I also don't represent any culture or tradition. (And I do understand why they try to fund that kind of art.) Nor do I make the kind of thing that's meant to go in a museum.

Well, you gotta try, and so I have.
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10/28/2025, 8:41:37 AM

Louisiana officials hid the whooping cough outbreak for two months
On Feb. 13, the state's surgeon general, Ralph Abraham, sent a memo to staff ending the general promotion of vaccines and community vaccine events.

…

As of Sept. 20, Louisiana had counted 387 cases of whooping cough in 2025, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The previous 35-year high was 214 cases, in 2013.
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10/28/2025, 7:45:50 AM

In 1691, on learning that her missing husband was serving in the British Army in Holland, Irish publican Christian Cavanagh disguised herself as a man to go after him.
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10/27/2025, 2:44:06 PM

Today's A.I. code review highlight: It had concerns about dates that it said were in the "far future."

Those dates were in 2024 and 2025.
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10/26/2025, 4:38:12 PM

76-minute run in Somerville. 8-4, then an hour later, 1-2 pull-ups on this outdoor bar.

I used to take break to do pull-ups on this bar every day when I used to work around here. Now that thick bar really throws me off.

The bike path did not go all the way across Somerville and into East Cambridge back then. It’s impressive now and opens up a lot for people with bikes.

It reminded me that a lot of Somerville is still industrial. Scrap yards abound!
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10/26/2025, 1:22:54 PM

Irish competitors clean decks at Angus youth finals
On Saturday morning, the finalists and their parents traveled to the Sclater family farm, who really outdid themselves with over 40 spring-born calves trained to an excellent standard, as well as providing superb facilities, where all 32 finalists competed in various sections, including clipping, grooming, ring craft, stock judging, panel interviews and presentations.
Irish kids went to Scotland and won all of the divisions in the cattle competition. This could be bad for international relations.
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10/25/2025, 9:33:04 PM

The guy and I were trying to figure out the end of the Surprise Symphony theme from memory. We hummed it and kept thinking it was C-C-B-B-C-C, but whenever we played it, it was obviously wrong.

So, we looked it up. It's C-C-F#-F#-G-G. The last two notes were exactly a fourth below what they actually were.

This has happened to me before. So, if something seems off while you're transcribing, try shifting by a fourth or fifth.
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10/25/2025, 7:49:30 PM

Bletting is a real word, I found out today.
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10/25/2025, 3:31:15 PM

Judo happened this morning.
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10/25/2025, 3:30:10 PM

Wakefield High School's locker room desperately needs cleaning. It smells like all sorts of yeasts and fungi are growing here.
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10/25/2025, 3:28:36 PM

I got to park in spot where the meter’s been taken out! Yes, parking around Harvard has lowered my standards for excitement.
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10/24/2025, 10:10:47 PM

I'm debugging something and realized that all green line graphs look like stonks.
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10/24/2025, 3:38:31 PM

The guy’s game has wall jumping, moving platform obstacles, and locks and keys now. It actually feels like a modern platformer now.

My game has things you can push and boxes that open. That’s it.
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