deathmtn

One more day left of extended family vacation. My in-laws are nice, but I think we've learned that five days is two days too many. Gonna muster up whatever it takes to complete the last evening and half day, but I'm spent.

Also, I'm kinda concerned what happened as a result of our windows being slightly open to keep the cats cool and that huge storm that happened yesterday in Boston. We asked the pet sitter to close the windows, but she didn't respond to questions about how much water got in, if any. I guess sometimes, it'd be nice to have a complete house sitter instead of a strict pet sitter.

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is being sentenced in the US today. I had no idea he did so much tunelling!

As the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Guzmán oversaw operations whereby mass cocaine, methamphetamines, marijuana,[10] and heroin was produced and subsequently smuggled into and distributed throughout the United States and Europe, the world's largest users.[11][12] He achieved this by pioneering the use of distribution cells in the U.S. and long-range tunnels near borders,[5] which enabled him to export more drugs to the United States than any other trafficker in history.[13]

…

The Mexican military followed the bodyguards' tips to Guzmán's former wife's house, but they had trouble ramming the steel-reinforced front door, which allowed Guzmán to escape through a system of secret tunnels that connected six houses, eventually moving south to Mazatlán.

…

After the guards did not see him for twenty-five minutes on surveillance video, personnel went looking for him.[189] When they reached his cell, Guzmán was gone. It was discovered he had escaped through a tunnel leading from the shower area to a house construction site 1.5 km (0.93 mi) away in a Santa Juanita neighborhood.[190][191] The tunnel lay 10 m (33 ft) deep underground, and Guzmán used a ladder to climb to the bottom. The tunnel was 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in) tall and 75 cm (30 in) in width. It was equipped with artificial light, air ducts, and high-quality construction materials.[187] In addition, a motorcycle was found in the tunnel, which authorities think was used to transport materials and possibly Guzmán himself.[192][193]

…

The Attorney General of México declared that "El Chapo ran away through a gully and, although he was found by a helicopter, he was with two women and a girl and it was decided not to shoot".

…

After the gunmen returned to the house, placing a large order for tacos at a nearby restaurant and picking up the order in a white van after midnight,[220] the residence was raided in the early hours of 8 January 2016,[225][226] in Operation Black Swan, by 17 marines from the Mexican Navy's Special Forces with support from the Mexican Army and the Federal Police[227][228] – but Guzmán and a lieutenant escaped through a secret tunnel, emerging 1.5 km away and stealing a vehicle at gunpoint.

The rest of the article is much more grisly than those excerpts, BTW.

I have to wonder how he kept power from being seized every time he went to prison. It seems quite common for drug cartels to split when the kingpin goes to jail. I imagine they all make threats of the most horrific violence for disloyalty, so there has to be something else to keep people loyal to you for multi-year prison stints.

Ronald Langestraat's story is incredible.

Two years later, Langestraat landed a residency at the Apollo Hotel in Amsterdam, a swanky spot known for its high-rolling clientele. On the surface, the gig seemed like a poor fit for both venue and artist. But to Langestraat’s surprise, the higher-ups at the hotel were actually quite open-minded. “They asked for a piano player, but I came in with modules, a computer, and a sequencer,” he recalls. “I came in with everything, and they said, ‘You don’t have to do this.’ But then I played for the boss and he said ‘I want you.’”

There was just one condition: “I had to play soft. If I were to be soft, I could do everything. Everything. I was completely free.” He played in the lounge five days a week, five hours a day, as hotel patrons held business meetings and talked privately at the bar. That no one danced or paid him any attention was of zero concern to Langestraat; the man preferred it that way.

I am envious of this situation and of his mindset.

This band seems cool, but I'm linking it mostly for this bit of information:

As the vocalist in a touring 14-piece covers band, she’d been able to travel the world, earning a living while performing for the likes of Barack Obama, Diana Ross, and—it must be disclosed—Donald Trump (who, Dawn says, allegedly dispatched a minion to the stage to scold the band for playing jazz, because Trump despises it).

I noticed the "random class" button Named Levels (which I haven't looked at in months) not responding when clicked. It turned out that the API was hanging because of a bug in my Wordnok module. That took care of the hanging. While I was at it, I ripped out caching because it seemed unnecessary and that version of level wouldn't build on Linux. But the API still returned an error (making the web app say "sorry, there's a problem").

Hitting the Named Levels page repeatedly causes the Wordnik rate limit to be hit. So, then I realized that the cache is necessary (it's actually 250K of made-up level titles!), and I brought back the caching.

Now, if, too many people are visiting, the random button won't work, but at least they'll be able to successfully look up several classes.

Past me, you were not as dumb as I thought you were!

They made everyone get off the train because someone kicked a window out of the train. I wonder if it was the guy screaming about abominations.

Whoa, I am burned out. Not to an extreme degree, but to an obvious degree. Not hungry, walking around spaced out!

I "shipped" Spinners today! It's a lot of objects…spinning!

Of course, there were some ugly issues to overcome in order to make it work, including minification-only and browser-specific problems. But that's in the past! I hope you can now enjoy continuous and trouble-free spinning.

Well, apparently, the Nazi chat site Gab forked Mastodon (the decentralized open source Twitter clone).

There's been a lot lately that has me rethinking whether totally free MIT-license-style open source is always a good idea.