Had a wonderful time at StoryFest this weekend! Thank you, Westport Library!!! 

Very excited for New York Comic Con!!! I'll be there on Thursday and Sunday. Hope to see you there!

Had such a fantastic time at New York Comic Con!!!
 

 

There is a popular and well-informed YouTube channel called BoardGameCo that has its finger on the pulse of the crowdfunding market for board games. A number of years ago, my husband Christopher shared the channel and its content with me, and it was an instant like for me. The main host, Alex, manages to come across as charming, intelligent, and principled all at once. He has a firm understanding of the board game industry, a vast library, and good instincts when it comes to predicting the value (both in terms of play and resale) of upcoming and current crowdfunding games, and makes recommendations on when to purchase and when to pass. I never feel like he’s trying to sell me something. He’s just very enthusiastic about board games and somewhere along the way realized people enjoy his work and I think that fuels him (along with YouTube ad revenue of course).

In 2023, Alex and his business partner Motti Eisenbach (of Addax Games) launched Level Up Events and hosted the inaugural Level Up Retreat. The retreat is an annual board game and RPG convention associated with BoardGameCo. It’s a small (<400 attendees) and cozy event tucked away in the Tri-State metropolitan area  (NY/NJ/CT), and very welcoming to all. The library (800+games) is well balanced in terms of complexity of play, player count, publication date, and game mechanisms.

This year the retreat was held in February and branded as the Level Up Winter  Retreat. One of my friends in the industry encouraged me to check it out and I was invited by Alex as a special guest to participate. My husband talked me into bringing him along as well since he’d introduced me to BoardGameCo all those years ago. There were a handful of other special guests in attendance – board game designers, content creators, etc. - and many of them became part of the draw of the retreat for attendees. It’s fun to play board games with smart, funny, and popular people. I definitely enjoyed getting to play with friends I don’t get to see often and also networking with other content creators.  I haven’t even mentioned the cosplayers yet but they were pretty cool too – shout out to all the Star Wars players especially. 

One thing I really enjoyed about the Level Up Retreat is their choice to host a regional qualifier for the World Series of Board Gaming (WSBG). The WSBG is an annual event in Vegas where competitors choose from 16 different games to begin a tournament that ends in 1 finale winner and a cash prize of $25,000. Serious gaming! To enter the WSBG, one must pay a registration fee, OR, win a regional qualifier to receive a gratis entry. So for anyone living in the Tri-State area and interested in qualifying for the WSBG, the Level Up Retreat is especially a great idea. I competed in the qualifier and made it to the semi-finals and it’s really spurred my interested in the WSBG. After returning home from the retreat, I’ve been organizing practice games and I’m currently running multiple practice games on Board Game Arena at all hours and planning to attend the WSBG. It’s really fantastic that the Level Up Retreat included this event as part of its scheduled activities and I hope that more regional board game conventions follow suit.

Another nice touch at the retreat was the VIP snack room. Are you a chocoholic? Or maybe a sugar fiend who skips over the chocolate for straight sugar goodness like Sweet Tarts, Runts, or Sour Patch Kids, or Nerds? Perhaps you go for the salty and you fuel your games on pretzels, chips, and granola bars? You might even be in the select group of healthy noshers who prefer fresh fruit and protein bars? It’s all good because the VIP snack room has it all (except beverages; the hosting hotel did not permit the organizers to provide beverages this year). Personally, I ate a lot of Nerds ropes, punctuated by a few fresh fruits. It’s an upcharge to have access to the VIP room, but if you’re a hard core board gamer who likes to hyperfocus, you’ll want to opt for it. You’ll also get additional swag in a nice swag bag as well.

So, the games were on point, the snacks were fantastic, the guests were great, and the events were numerous and well attended (including many many RPG events outside my scope that I heard were fantastic). Bonus: I never had to wait in a long line in the library for a game I wanted to become available. In fact, there weren’t any lines at the library at all, as it was kind of a constant free-for-all. And that’s the only aspect of this convention that needs some work – the library setup and procedures. While the library volunteers did their best to help people find games they were looking for, there isn’t any inventory list of games for attendees to browse through when selecting games, the games are not arranged on the shelves in alphabetical order, and there is no formal check-out, check-in process. Not only does this create a bit of chaos when trying to find a game, it’s a security issue. Most conventions have either a formal check-out/check-in process so that someone is always accountable for each game removed from the library, or they have the library setup directly within the gaming space and security at the door to prevent attendees from removing games from the gaming area. The Level Up Retreat had neither; it’s all operating on the honor system. I hope for the sake of future attendees and the profitability of the event for the organizing entities that more effort is given toward organizing and securely managing the library at the next retreat.

The Level Up Retreat has found the formula for convention success and I’m confident that once they address the library management issues it will be well on its way to being recognized as one of the best regional board gaming conventions.

 

ALT TEXT: The head of a bear, figured in every artist's medium of choice: yellow Playdoh. And looking considerably more apprehensive than the artist intended, although I suppose that makes a change from all the inane grinning. 

The 'head only' approach is by far my patron's least favourite. He loathes it, and any such submission is immediately met with outraged cries of 'Knees! Knees!' However, as I believe Caravaggio used to say to Cardinal Del Monte, "There's only so much Playdoh in the tub."

 

 First, an apology. It has been brought to my attention that I have been irritatingly coy about the identity of my patron for this series of pieces, and the precise nature of my relationship with him. This is of course information you have every right to know, for reasons too obvious to explain; and which you could not possibly in a million years have guessed. No-one’s that clever-clever. 

So let me now be perfectly straightforward with you: my patron is His Serene Grace Archduke Gustavus Von und zu Schellenhuber, Prince-Elector of Westphalia. I recently had the honour to be appointed his Court Artist (Ursine and Elephantine works only). 

Here is the latest piece I have completed for His Grace. I believe he intends it as a fresco for his refectory.

ALT TEXT: A cardboard box, on which is drawn a family of hippos gazing in delight at a shower of cupcakes falling towards them like manna. This reflects my patron's short-lived hippo phase. However, elephants are just about visible on two other flaps of the box, so yes it does count, thank you.  

 ALT TEXT: Daddy Bear and Baby Bear in bath. Baby Bear did big jump, and splashing, splashing. Such, at least, was the commission. 

 

Alt text - two friends go looking for an adventure, and a sun rises.

Alt text: a stylish woman in a coat, who is emphatically neither an elephant nor a bear. Not everyone is.

Alt Text: In a word: Penguins.

Alt text: A stegasaurus standing on its head. A commission.

Alt text. A lady peering round in a car window. She seems cross, but I think she's just checking to see if there's anything coming. I mean, she might be cross as well. I don't know her.

Каждый новый год хочется сделать что-то особенное для своих близких. Я всегда выбираю только оригинальные и запоминающиеся подарки, ведь эмоции бесценны. В этом году открыл для себя интересную подборку топ подарков на НГ, которые не только удивляют, но и приносят пользу. Среди таких идей — уникальные гаджеты и экопродукция, которые сейчас на пике популярности. Заказать их можно с удобной доставкой, что делает подготовку к празднику намного проще.

Nomadland [US, Chloé Zhao, 5] When her town closes down in the wake of its gypsum mine’s closure, a self-reliant widow (Frances McDormand) moves into her van and joins the ranks of the nomad subculture, people who rove the US, taking whatever hard work they can get and living out of their vehicles. Rooted in social realist cinema, marked by a triad of transcendent qualities: poetic visual beauty, an indelible central performance and a deep love for the characters from the writer/director.

This is from Searchlight, formerly Fox Searchlight, now part of the Disney empire, so you’ll get a chance to see it. Likely as part of awards season, whatever the heck that’s gonna look like this year. Normally I don’t spend festival slots on titles with distribution but that’s out the window in the COVID-verse.

(At the moment cinemas are open, with distancing, here in Ontario but if you look at the numbers we’re in the early denial phase of a reimposition of lockdown measures. Whatever the deal is I don’t plan to be inside a theater in any foreseeable time frame.)

Her next project is a huge pivot from poetic verite dramas like this and The Rider— Marvel’s The Eternals. 

Memory House [Brazil, João Paulo Miranda Maria, 1] Racist harassment from German co-workers drives dairy worker to vengeance. Blunts the political anger of its subject matter with enervating pacing.

Another Round [Denmark, Thomas Vinterberg, 4.5] Burned out high school teacher (Mads Mikkelsen) embarks with three colleagues on an experiment to enhance their performance by maintaining a blood alcohol level of 0.5% throughout their days at work. Not only an original booze movie, but a big one, full of turns and ambiguities, and an utterly masterful performance from Mikkelsen.

Shadow in the Cloud [New Zealand, Roseanne Liang, 4] When an WWII RAF Flight Officer (Chloe Grace Moretz) boards a Samoa-bound cargo plane bearing a mysterious package, a monstrous gremlin on board is just one of the surprises. Enclosed space horror-action thriller tips an 80s-style hat to Carpenter and Cameron.

---

Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus.

Бель не хочет думать о будущем. Подготовительные программы для поступления в колледж? Смешно. Внеклассные занятия? Без шансов. Записаться в клуб робототехники, где полно парней, которые игнорируют тебя или, что еще хуже, постоянно спрашивают, не нужна ли помощь? Что угодно, только не это. Но когда на уроке у нее случайно обнаруживается талант инженера, то выбора не остается.
Матео Луна – красивый капитан клуба робототехники, который мгновенно распознал способности Бель. Она нужна ему в команде. И не только потому, что он не может перестать думать о крошечных веснушках вокруг ее глаз или о том, как она подсадила его на песни Тейлор Свифт. Все дело в том, что Бель видит его. И она бросает ему вызов.
Но когда они всерьез начинают сталкиваться лбами, Бель задается вопросом: а есть ли на самом деле место для девушки в научной сфере?

Князь Феликс Феликсович Юсупов, граф Сумароков-Эль-стон младший (1887— 1967) – родовитый аристократ, семейство которого владело колоссальнейшим состоянием. Он учился в Пажеском корпусе и в Оксфорде, был бисексуалом и женился на племяннице Николая II. Одно про него знают все – он убил Распутина. После большевистской революции князь счастливо избежал смерти и почти полвека провел в изгнании.
Впервые полный текст «Мемуаров» выходит на русском языке, да еще в таком дивном переводе, что даже не верится, что князь писал их по-французски. «Мемуары» напрочь лишены авторского тщеславия: князь Юсупов рассказывает о себе и о других с простотой и величием настоящего аристократа, которому не надо ни отчитываться, ни оправдываться. Нив чем… У него цепкая память и живой ум, легкий слог и острый взгляд, причуды и странности, глубина и легковесность, юмор и обаяние, блеск и нищета. А за автопортретом без поблажек и комплексов проглядывает история и является Россия – пышная и порочная, безумная и достойная, парадоксальная и подлинная…
В формате PDF A4 сохранен издательский макет книги.

В книге, написанной коллективом ведущих канадских историков, рассматривается история страны с древнейших времен до начала XXI в. Показана специфика развития аборигенных сообществ до начала контактной эпохи, вскрыты особенности колонизации территории страны французами и англичанами, прослежены основные этапы становления канадской государственности, освоения и заселения территории страны, формирования современного полиэтничного состава населения, подчеркнут мирный, эволюционный характер развития канадского общества. Книга содержит обширный и тщательно подобранный фактический материал, сочетающийся с глубоким и взвешенным анализом описываемых событий. До настоящего времени книга выдержала 25 изданий в Канаде и является одной из наиболее известных общих работ по истории этой страны.

Общий очерк отечественной истории, написанный тремя выдающимися испанскими историками и выдержавший несколько переизданий, в Испании по праву считается классическим. В нем изложены основные события истории страны с древности до первых десятилетий XXI в. В частности, исследована эпоха господства мусульман на Пиренейском полуострове и борьба христианских государств за освобождение страны. Рассмотрены особенности социально-экономического и политического развития Испанской монархии, эволюция колониальной империи, взаимоотношения Церкви и государства, социокультурная специфика исторических областей. Проанализированы бурные события XIX — начала XXI в., включая Войну за независимость в начале XIX в., Гражданскую войну (1936–1939), франкистский режим, переход от диктатуры к демократии, особенности развития общенациональной и региональной национальной идентичности.
Для преподавателей и студентов, историков-испанистов и для всех, интересующихся всеобщей историей.

В своих остросюжетных повестях Татьяна Бочарова синтезирует разные жанры: это и детектив, и мелодрама, и обязательно лирическая история о человеческих чувствах и переживаниях. Ее герои – простые люди, наши с вами современники, которые волею судьбы оказались в сложной ситуации. Им предстоит сделать непростой выбор, разобраться в дебрях козней и обмана, не сломаться, выстоять, помочь не только себе, но и тем, кому необходима их помощь.
В сборник входят повести «Романтическая история, «Дело о пропавших ампулах», «Проклятье Снегурочки».
Остросюжетные мелодрамы Татьяны Бочаровой из серии «Детектив сильных страстей» – увлекательные повести для широкой читательской аудитории, где действительность узнаваема, в героях можно увидеть себя и своих близких, прописаны традиционные ценности, добро в финале побеждает зло и справедливость торжествует.

Лукас Тэтчер – мой главный враг.
Всегда им был, сколько себя помню: бесконечные подколки, тычки и подтрунивания… Наша война затихла на десять лет – нет, не потому, что мы повзрослели и поумнели, просто я уехала в поисках лучшей жизни. Получила престижное медицинское образование. Стала востребованным специалистом. В конце концов, расцвела. Все было просто прекрасно – пока я не вернулась домой и не встретилась с этим самовлюбленным, высокомерным, заносчивым… красавчиком.
Это что, Лукас? Прежний хулиган из школы? Нет, только не говорите мне… Да, он тоже изменился. Может быть, мы бы даже поладили, если бы не одно НО: он ступил на мою территорию, тоже став врачом. Теперь нас ожидает схватка не на школьном дворе, а на рабочем месте. И победитель будет только один! Я уверена в своих силах…
Если бы не тот поцелуй… Черт, кто разрешил ему играть не по правилам?!

Альтернативное будущее. После Перехода мир живёт под контролем всевидящих камер Комитета Сестёр. Настоящие женщины, мужчины – все они остались в прошлом, теперь близкие контакты разрешены только в нейросети, где каждый может получить партнера на любой вкус и воплотить любые желания. Одни приспособились к жизни в этой тотальной иллюзии, другие охотятся за нелегальными удовольствиями. А кому-то хочется найти в виртуальном пространстве дорогу к подлинной реальности – и однажды это удаётся.

Рабовладельческое судно – самое, пожалуй, неподходящее место для возникновения дружбы. Но именно на нем встретились оказавшиеся в плену робкий, плохо знающий мир лекарь Савьо и непредсказуемый и загадочный одиночка Айзек – раб, пытавшийся убить своего хозяина. И что делать Савьо теперь, когда единственный шанс выжить – и есть тот самый мятежный раб, которого работорговец непременно решил превратить в своего бойца? Какие тайны скрывает прошлое Айзека и будущее Савьо? Ведь, как известно, не бывает человека без секретов, как и не бывает судьбы без внезапных поворотов.

Я внезапно оказалась в странном новом мире. В Царстве, где мне известна только Смерть. Где жизнь, которую я вела раньше, – не что иное, как тень на периферии сознания. Она зовет меня, умоляет вспомнить, что же со мной произошло… Но чем больше я пытаюсь это сделать, тем сильнее забываю все, и тем страшнее для меня становится этот жестокий новый мир. Я загадка не только для себя, но и для всех вокруг. Душа, затерянная в мире Тьмы, которых хочет сожрать меня и объявить своей, прежде чем у меня появится шанс сбежать. Прежде чем у меня появится шанс вспомнить, кто я… И как я сюда попала. Прежде чем я вспомню его. Но даже тогда Преисподняя не отпустит меня.

Убить семью в обмен на имбовый дар… Или умереть самому. Сложный выбор для попаданца, который еще вчера был простым работягой. Нелепая случайность сломала грани миров. Обычный рабочий в теле юного дворянина, за которым охотится Высшее зло. Интриги, развитие магии, роскошные балы и кровавые заговоры. Разве это под силу простому слесарю из глубинки? Рабочая смекалка против хитрости местных аристо. Кто знает, что из этого выйдет… Ясно только одно — легких путей тут не будет.


Примечания автора:
— Развлекательная боярка на вечер под пробочку пива.
— Основная фишка — насыщенный сюжет с элементами детектива. Никаких водных глав и растянутых на "мильен километров" пустых сцен. Только сюжетное мясо, только хардкор.
— СисичГи-тяночки есть. Но в меру. Без трэша и фантазий бомжа-извращенца. Элементы гарема тоже немного присутствуют.
— У ГГ имбовый дар. Но опять же без перегибов. Зато с нагибом всех несогласных.
— Капелька дебильного петросянства, чисто для лёгкого кринжа.
— Не смотрите аннотацию, а сразу читайте книгу. Ибо в "красивые обертки" я не умею.
— Сам читаю, все нравится. Если это не шедевр, тогда что?…

Небоскреб корпорации в центре Токио, точнее его подвал. Там работает стажер Кайто, который не добился успеха к тридцати годам и получил клеймо неудачника.
Друзей нет, девушка сбежала к другому, а будущее лишено перспектив.
Так было, пока в стажера не вселился российский продюсер.
Его ждут разборки богатых семей, ночные отчеты и сдача недельного плана за два часа.
Кто сказал, что будет легко? Это Токио, детка. И он устроит здесь настоящее шоу с истинно русским размахом!

В живой наглядной форме представлены главные вехи в развитии античной литературы, дан филологический анализ. Особое внимание уделено восприятию античного литературного наследия в России.
Для студентов, преподавателей и всех, интересующихся историко-культурными вопросами.

Йозеф Бирбихлер (род. 1948) – немецкий актер театра и кино, писатель, журналист. Снимался у Вернера Херцога («Стеклянное сердце»), Михаэля Ханеке («Белая лента»), Тома Тыквера. Бирбихлер часто работает в жанре аудиоспектакля. Он озвучил, среди прочего, произведения Генриха фон Клейста, Хуго Балля, Роберта Музиля, Джеймса Джойса.
Роман «Mittelreich» (2013) – семейная сага в лучших традициях жанра. История семьи, управляющей усадьбой на озере в Баварии, неразрывно связана с историей Германии XX века. Эпическое повествование о судьбах трех поколений оборачивается рассуждением о судьбе страны, о войне и разрушении, старой власти и новых хозяевах жизни.

Словосочетание «польские партизаны» периода Второй мировой войны традиционно ассоциируется с бойцами подразделений Армии крайовой, подчинявшейся польскому правительству в эмиграции. В 1944 г. под эгидой левых сил возникла еще одна партизанская сила – Армия людова. Но в этой книге речь пойдет о еще об одной, наименее известной категории польских партизан – советских.
В 1943—1944 гг. политическим и партизанским руководством БССР предпринимались активные попытки вовлечь многочисленное польское население Белоруссии в советское партизанское движение. Отчасти на территории Пинской, Барановичской и Вилейской областей БССР эти усилия увенчались успехом. Работа кандидата исторических наук С.В. Благова основана на документальном материале российских, белорусских и польских архивов, а также опубликованных документах и электронных базах данных белорусских партизан.
В формате PDF A4 сохранен издательский макет книги.

В сборник включены издающиеся впервые в России письма и документы виднейшего российского социал-демократа (меньшевика) Ю. О. Мартова, относящиеся к событиям революции и Гражданской войны. Публикуемые материалы дают яркое представление о сложнейшем клубке политических конфликтов тех лет, мужественном противостоянии демократических сил установленному в России диктаторскому большевистскому режиму, совершенно по-новому освещают трагический этап отечественной истории и жизнь самого Мартова, преданного забвению советской историографией, одного из основателей российской социал-демократической партии. Вступительная статья известных историков, докторов исторических наук Ю. Г. Фельштинского и Г. И. Чернявского, рассказывает о политическом пути Мартова и значении публикуемых документов, а детальные примечания разъясняют сущность событий тех лет и дают представление о деятелях, упоминаемых в книге.
Издание рассчитано не только на специалистов, но и на широкую читательскую аудиторию.

«Хочется всех послать, а еще поесть ттокпокки» содержит расшифровки записей консультаций с психотерапевтом автора, Пэк Сехи, страдающей дистимией (состояние легкой подавленности, которое может сохраняться очень длительное время). В рассказах автора много личного и очень откровенного, но суть их не в демонстрации темных чувств, а в поиске изначальных причин конкретных ситуаций, в движении к выздоровлению. Эта книга для тех, кто испытывал подавленность или депрессию, находится в поисках гармонии с собой и окружающим миром.

В архиве появился № 114. Новые номера регулярно будут пополнять сайт,
приглашаем читателей и коллег не терять из виду этот процесс!

Сегодня на сцене Театра юных зрителей им А. А. Брянцева прошла торжественная церемония награждения лауреатов XXХ Высшей театральной премии Санкт-Петербурга «Золотой софит». Ниже публикуем список победителей со ссылками на рецензии наших авторов.

1. Sols 4362-4363: Plates And Polygons  Mirage News
2. Sols 4359-4361: Ideal Rover Road Trip Spot  Mirage News

Hello and howdy. I usually describe myself as turning the "ripe old age of so-and-so" on my birthday posts, but I may need a new adjective as I'm solidly in my mid-40s, now (44). Perhaps "fermented." The birthday's come and gone without incident, although there were minor contemporaneous incidents:

Still in the math hole. It might be an infinite hole. Trying to get out. But I have improved my console fonts and ANSI color libraries and GPU programming skills, at least. I was very pleased that a recent release of NVIDIA drivers came with a brand new updated OpenCL, which I previously assumed had been abandoned like so many computer things that I become fond of. Kudos to whoever at NVIDIA pushed on this. I am making myself laugh privately to myself (well, no longer private now) by imagining someone who spells it out like an acronym, N-V-I D-I-A.

Also, like usual, I ran the Pittsburgh Great Race, a mostly-downhill 10k. No encumbrances this time. I've been in good shape this summer, but I got sick last month and it set me back a bit, so this wasn't a star performance. Still 43m22s is not too bad and I didn't push myself all that hard. Fewer minutes than years old.

The new GPU is mostly for math, but I wanted to try it out for its Intended Purpose, (N)Video Games. So I played through Far Cry 6, which was okay. I liked it better than 5, which among other things had a bunch of technical problems (this one was much smoother and more stable), but I probably should have read my review of that game before downloading, as I say something like "I should probably stop playing this series." Still slowly savoring Tears of The Kingdom, which remains great. I also started Return To Monkey Island. I loved the first two in this series, but couldn't get into the later sequels; of course I'm interested in giving this one a shot since it's made by the original designers (and I did like Thimbleweed Park). Too early to render a verdict, but I did like how they deftly handled the canonicity of the end of 2.

Then there's this: I think this is Taylor Swift wearing a homemade t-shirt of her "Pegicorn" (sometimes "Pegacorn"), a Unicorn-Pegasus hybrid. The text is in my font Action Jackson:

Taylor Swift Pegicorn (Action Jackson font)

You can also see this drawing/font at the beginning of the "Making of" video for You Belong With Me". I think she posted this to twitter in May 2009, but somehow I'm unable to find an archive of her tweets from this time (inconceivable??).

Hello and happy Honda-days, Toyota-thon, etc.!

It's the tail end of winter break here, and we did a little traveling to see family, etc.. But I've been keeping the calendar light so that I have plenty of time for projects. There are too many in the works simultaneously, which is a bad sign, but during break I made significant progress on all of them. I also added a new one, with the idea that it would be a "small hack" so that I'd be sure to have something for SIGBOVIK (not everything needs to be epic, right?). It already works, but now I'm in the midst of writing a PDF file generator, which is also a bad sign.

Now that I'm nearly done going in and out of my attic so much, it seemed like good timing to attend to the dangerously acrobatic way that I always get in, which is to stand at the very top of a ladder and then mantle up using the floor joists. It's not actually that dangerous even though the ladder demands that you Never Stand Above This Line (how am I supposed to stand in the attic then, ladder?!), but I regularly lose my phone out of my pocket in the last leg-swinging step, which is at least dangerous to the phone. Without belaboring the tale, I ended up "having" to go to Harbor Freight to invest in some suspiciously cheap tools like a set of black pipe threading dies, pipe wrenches, pipe cutter, and while I was there I got a new vise. Worried that the vise would be too easy to install, I wisely purchased carriage bolts with square necks, so I had to file down the mounting holes of this thing:

JPEG File

This provided a good occasion to listen to some albums in the basement and order some new files. It is now very firmly and satisfyingly bolted to that satisfyingly timeworn workbench. Not pictured is how I needed to grind down the bolts so that the cabinet door below could open and close again (I use this cabinet to store old vises).


Codename: Viseman

The only thing I have used the new vise for so far is to flatten one of the washers that was used to attach the old, crappy vise, so that I could weld that washer to the charging terminal on my Roomba so that it's able to charge again, so that I could vacuum up all the steel filings on my basement floor. Anyway, getting back now to the original task of making the entrance to the attic a similar amount of athletic but less fraught, I installed this pull-up bar:


workout

The only hard part of this was getting the pipe to be just the right length, and threaded, but I am now equipped to do such tasks.

Winter is also a time for hibernation. I played through The Talos Principle II. I really loved the first Talos Principle, which had no business being as good as it was (the team was mainly known for Serious Sam, an over-the-top first-person shooter). Talos is a puzzle game with a pretty interesting story and fairly thoughtful writing. The sequel is good and definitely worth playing if you liked the original. It has a bit of the "Portal 2" effect where they clearly had a bigger budget and wanted to add all this polish, but did miss some of what made the original magic along the way. As you know I love to play games "the wrong way," and so I'm always looking for ways to break the puzzles in this game. I felt like the first one let me get away with more hijinks, like you'd stack items to make your way up somewhere, and a third of the time it'd be a Star (expected for 100%), a third of the time it'd be an Easter egg (acknowledging your prowess), and a third of the time you'd just fall out of the map forever and have to reset (true victory). I did fall out of the level several times on this sequel, but it seemed to me that the puzzles were more tightly constrained. Then again, I watched the current world record speedruns and there's certainly a lot of hijinks possible, so maybe I'm just losing my edge! I also played through Party Hard. It's a "murder all the people in 2D" game very similar to the Hotline Miami games, and not as good, but its absurd mood and unfair chaotic difficulty did grow on me. Right now I am "playing" (the) Gnorp Apologue, an idle game that has its charms, but, well, it's an idle game and I think it is cruel to ever recommend those. It was written in Rust!

Hello again,

This month I've been plugging away on the project I mentioned in the previous post which involves among other things a PDF generator and now an implementation of ML (as in Standard ML, but also the other one). This is probably the 10th "compiler" I've written in my life, and it's kind of fun to revisit these problems that you've done many times and try out different approaches, although this time one of the approaches is "Use C++" (for reasons of making good on a joke, but also for reasons of mlton doesn't work on my computer any more). And although C++ is a fine tool for many applications, it does have some deficiencies for the task of writing a compiler (one of the most irritating: a very modest limit on the stack depth? Like my computer has 256 Gigabytes of RAM and 2^64 virtual addresses and somehow it can only manage 1 megabyte for the stack and there's no standard way to increase it? Get off my lawn). But then you can also experience new ways of struggling with C++, like: A middle of the night power failure wrecked my computer's GPT (as in GUID Partition Table, but also the other one) and I was deep in the depths of taking the computer apart to reset its parts, its BIOS (its Basic In/Out System, which is where it stores its biography) and its hard drives were everywhere on the floor, and it could not be saved, and this after I already broke my computer this year by trying to put the world's biggest video card in it, too hard. And I could not merely perform recovery because of Unknown Error, so I had to begin anew again and restore from backups. But when you restore from backup and you're in the mood of "why is this so complicated and I don't understand how computers work any more?" it occurs to you (me) to also change your underlying development environment instead of reinstalling the devil you know. So I ended my friendship with Cygwin64 and switched to new best friend MSYS2. Both of these things are different ways of wishing that you were using Linux while you're using Windows. The main reason I tried this new way of struggling is that Cygwin is very behind on its version of x86_64 clang (C++ compiler), which I wanted to try because it supports AddressSanitizer and clangd on Windows, and I wanted to give LSP in emacs a shot (it's finally good!). There were a few growing pains, but I think MSYS2 is what I would recommend now. One of the nice things they did was create multiple different environments depending on what you want to do (e.g. "I want to use clang to compile x86_64 code" or "I want to do 32-bit cross compilation for ARM") and in that environment, you just say "g++" and it invokes the compiler you want, instead of the weird contortions I've been doing for years with manually invoking x86_64-w64-mingw32-g++. I was also able to get clblast working before being too filled with rage to continue, so that is nice for the ML inference on the world's biggest graphics card. I made these graphics to help me tune the correct settings of GPU layers (y axis) and number of threads (x axis):

tune-single
tune-batch

In some sense the results are obvious (more threads and more layers is faster) but it was interesting to me how the cliff of performance drops off at a different number of layers for single and batch mode (I guess because the batch needs some memory itself?) and how it's clearly better to use fewer threads than cores for batch as well. I was not surprised to see performance drop off for >32 threads (everybody knows that hyper-threads kinda suck) but I was very surprised to see performance pick up again when it gets back up to 64? And only for single mode? I wish I understood that better. But mostly I'm a sucker for the custom visualizations.

Right but when writing this compiler I realized that I wanted to use some Greek letters, and I can't handle it when some characters are in a different font in my source code, so I finally made some space for those in my programming font FixederSys. These certainly still need some tweaks, but it's already better than just being in some other weird font:


{{{caption}}}

You can also see that I have been adding some "useful" emoji at the top. It is an interesting puzzle to try to make these things recognizable (especially for the 1x version, whose charboxes are 8x16 pixels). I am pretty sure I will not try to do all of the emoji (like, the flags are totally hopeless at 8x16), but it is tempting to round out the Unicode support somewhat. Like I was trying to make a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ today and had to settle for ~\_( :) )_/~ which is pretty much (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻.

Also: Adam revived our old game jam game Headcat, which I described in post 927, now over 16 years ago. You can play it online at Headcat.org. It is harder than I remember, perhaps explaining why it did not reach #1 on the One Appstore Per Child charts.

Also: I started and finished (true ending, but just with one character) Slay the Spire. Good game, but you don't need me to tell you that. Same for Alwa's Legacy, which is the sequel to Alwa's Awakening. Both of these are very true-to-form "8-bit" and "16-bit" platformers that I enjoyed and would recommend for genre fans, though I did not try to 100% them. The graphics are the highlight and I thought it was very cute how these could easily have been a pair of games from the NES and SNES. The good old days. And speaking of good-old days, I am now playing Katamari Damacy, which I had played at a friend's house many years ago, and always wanted to spend more time with. It totally holds up (aside from stuff like: You have to play through the tutorial and first level before you can access the menus at all, like to make the game fullscreen?) and it's honestly inspiring how unhinged the game design and writing are, and how fun it manages to be. What an accomplishment!

Oops! Usually when I fail to post on time and then illegally backdate the post, yielding a penalty of -1,000 points, it's shortly after midnight. Like, as I'm trying to fall asleep (which of course involves and involuntary inventory of everything I may have failed to do), I'm struck with a panic and then get back out of bed to write some dumb pro-forma apology post. This time I just went to bed and actually fell asleep and now here I am noticing that it is May 1. Still, the whole point of doing this every month is to make the grid of months line up nicely, so the post is backdated by 9 hours and nets -1,000 points.

Speaking of lining up nicely: I did get my SIGBOVIK papers in on time and gave a lightning talk at the conference. SIGBOVIK was very popular this year, with our longest-ever proceedings (see SIGBOVIK 2024 PDF or bound volume). This year my project is a paper about a new typesetting system that I wrote to produce the paper (and the talk's slides). That system is called BoVeX and the paper is called Badness 0, which you can read as Badness 0 (Knuth's version) and/or Badness 0 (Epsom's version). You can also maybe find a recorded livestream of the breakneck 5 min presentation, but I would wait for the proper video (in progress now!), which is the same content with much better pacing and details.

Speaking of details: I also presented at An Evening of Unnecessary Detail, which is one of Matt Parker ("Standup Maths")'s live shows. Other than the part where I tried to pack a dense months-long technical project about details into 12 minutes, this was a blast! Lots of cool, interesting people. This took place in a proper comedy club in Brooklyn, like with posters of people that I watch on TV (e.g. Taskmaster legend Fern Brady is performing there in a few weeks, so it seems I'm a mere 5 or 6 steps away from my dream of being a contestant on Taskmaster now), and was sold out (due exclusively to the eminence of others, since it was sold out before I even joined the bill). I finally hung out with Grant Sanderson ("3blue1brown") and told him about math. The audience was amazingly attentive and wholesome, and quite a few of them recognized me and wanted to talk after the show, which is fun. (I do not envy the queue that Matt and Grant endured, though!) Enjoy my technically deficient vacation photography:

I'm photobombing, but Matt is so used to this act that he is reflexively crouching down so as not to appear twice my height

Speaking of technically deficient photography: An additional reason why my video is not done yet (or indeed, why it currently has status Filming 0) is that I finally pulled the shutter release on a new video camera. After much deliberation (and visiting the B&H showroom while in NY, etc.), including on far more ridiculous options, I settled on the Canon R5C. After a complex week-long courtship ritual with the FedEx guy, that finally arrived last night, at which point I immediately realized that I need further accessories. But I'm excited to shoot on this thing and to make my computer suffer with 8k video. It seems to have gotten too complacent with "Full HD."

Finally, I think the main reason I failed to post on time last night was that I was up late playing Balatro. This game is all over the place so you probably don't need me to tell you about it, but it is indeed a good (and addictive) deck-building game that I am enjoying instead of sleep. I am not interested in 100%ing this one, but there are still lots of appealing challenges left for me to do. I'd recommend it if you have the self control to avoid firing it up "for a quick game" when you should be working on your projects or sleeping.

As predicted, I posted my new video called Badness 0. If you are waiting for me to post the video here, you are a poor detective! I think it's best without spoilers, which is why the title and thumbnail have very little useful information in them, although the thumbnail is intended to be an attractive nuisance for people with eyes/brains like mine:

Badness Ｏ

Of course the whole system is set up to punish you if you don't have a clickbait title with a human face making an astonished look and an arrow at something in the video with some bold text that says "OVERSTATED PREMISE!" So if you did like it, please share the old fashioned way. Someone plausibly told me that they showed it to Knuth, which I choose to believe is true.

The video was not really that much more work than usual (although I am practicing new techniques and using new equipment) but since it came after several rounds of crunch on the same project (papers, SIGBOVIK talk, NYC talk) I did rather feel like a break. But a few bugs and unfinished things in BoVeX were haunting me, so I got sucked back into programming this month, although at a relaxed pace. I fixed the bug reported in previous comments where the files wouldn't render on some platforms, or would have really screwed up kerning. I added compression, so that you can't see my unoptimized PDF code if you open it in a text editor. I fixed the bugs with mutually recursive function bundles that capture polymorphic variables. I fixed the bug where the internal bytecode routine that creates nodes always flattens them into normal form, which fixes the weird spaces in some situations. I got it compiling in recent GCCs. I think I'm successfully done hacking on it for now, although I suspect I will use BoVeX for future papers, so I will be back!

Other things: I let myself play video games and promptly got addicted to Hades, which is excellent, as you probably know. I have "beaten" it but I'm not really finished; a more detailed review in a future post.

Right now we are working on the 2024 ICFP Programming Contest so I should probably get back to that. I am enjoying this one, not only because it continues the story of the 2006 contest that I led (it still works! and is also best without spoilers!). I'll write about this too, but there's still 10 hours left in the contest so fair play forbids me from showing any images until after. (Not that we are doing great or anything, but we're pretty close to solving every puzzle, at least!) So I should probably get back to that!

Hello team!

I turned 45! It happens every year (not the same age, but the same feeling, of time marching forward, with me along with it) so no big surprise. This weekend was the Great Race, also every year, but I unsubscribed from their e-mail list at some point months ago because they seem to operate this list under the misconception that subscribers want to think about Great Race 24/7 all year round. I thought: It should be easy to just remember when the Great Race is, as it always falls on the weekend near my birthday, and I do not need a list constantly mailing me reminders. Easy. But then I forgot about the Great Race, so I didn't run it.

I did take the day off for my birthday despite this being the busy time of year at work, which was worth it: I made some good progress on some projects that had been backed up in my anxiety-brain for some time. Of course they are confidential, but here is a graphic of some significant progress:

Minusweeper

I forgot to mention this one when I did it, but did you know that you can "buy" a Unicode codepoint, by making a donation to the Unicode consortium? So of course I bought ASCII 0x37, which is the digit 7.

True story: I did a lot of film photography when I was younger, and although I do miss film, I'll admit that the saddest thing I feel about its obsolescence is actually that those little black plastic film canisters are no longer all over the place to be repurposed to hold little objects. I found them very satisfying and useful! Fortunately now that I'm old I found another similar ubiquitous shape, which is these orange prescription medicine bottles. I've been using those for a while to "organize" small parts like screws (e.g. when I take something apart that I might want to put back together, I put the screws in the medicine bottle and label it) but then they just roll around in the drawer of crap. So this:


RxBox, Unpopulated
RxBox, Populated

A very simple part, of course, but what could be more satisfying than 3d printing your own holder for canisters for fasteners that goes in a drawer in a cabinet?

And speaking of satisfying, I finally finished Chippy (regular difficulty) which was really quite hard. Several of the last bosses I had to practice over several evenings before I beat them! It was a good and creative game, though. I'm mid-way through Solar Ash, which is good (but it's no Hyper Light Drifter IMO!) and just started playing Satisfactory, since they finally put out a 1.0 version of that. It's quite well done, but I'm not sure if I actually like it (seems a bit heavy on the cookie crafting; in fact I'm letting it craft in the background as I write this). I am getting a kick out of allowing thinking about my messy design as the "saddest factory," a joke which I'm sure occurs to everyone, but that's Game Design!