Notices by Strange Attractor (strangeattractor@refactorcamp.org), page 6

Just figured out that "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash is really easy to play on the accordion. Watch out, Open Mic Night, here I come!

I really miss making music...of all forms. It's been years since I played an instrument, which is a kind of physical/skillful experience that's hard to replicate. And producing electronic music on my computer is still something I do occasionally, but I never feel quite the fervor or connection to it that I felt a previous points in my life.

I am in a body of water - maybe not yet an ocean, but deeper than a stream. I am not drowning, but I am moving at such a pace that it is difficult to stay oriented. I am gaining confidence in my ability to stay afloat if present circumstances persist, but in those brief moments when I catch a glimpse of the scale of the structure which surrounds me, uncertainty becomes at once joyous and terrifying.

There's no such thing as a 10x programmer.

There is such a thing as a x/10 workplace, however.

Me and my wife are making up a Dr. Who role-playing game for two players (alternating GMs), We did our first playtest yesterday. Needs work but the basics feel very promising. Very low-prep, you land in a place & time and "discover" (i.e. make up) what's happening there as you go.

If we publish it we'll just leave out all the copyrighted stuff and call it like "space/time travel buddies" or something.

@bankuei feels good to role-play again even a little bit, after years of not having time to!

TIME SIGNATURES https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5E7W9minGw&t=0s

Prepare for a series of garden toots!!

We have Hazelnuts!!!!! This is the first year the tree (planted from a sapling) has made fruit. YAY!!!

#garden #tree

My favourite fact about Canada is that in the 70's a radio show had a competition for a national simile along the lines of "as american as apple pie" and the winning entry was "as canadian as possible under the circumstances"

B612 is an open-source font developed by Airbus. It's the result of a research project to define and validate an “Aeronautical Font” to improve display of information on the cockpit screens, in particular in terms of legibility and comfort of reading. https://b612-font.com/

A lot of my job lately is figuring out how to visually represent the *lack* of knowledge.

If you're into ascii art, svgbob is for you: https://ivanceras.github.io/svgbob-editor/

we're seeing chocolate levels at about 63%

(63%) ■■■■■■□□□□

There are protests against the concentration camps today:

https://www.closethecampsnow.org/event/close-camps-now_attend/search/?

(Today?? Why am I only just hearing about it now?)

Diane Feinstein's office in San Francisco is within walking distance of my work, so I might go hold a sign there at lunchtime:

https://www.closethecampsnow.org/event/close-camps-now/125152/signup/

@jankoekepan @artlav @nindokag I am now running my own email server (again, after being an email admin for half a decade.)

Obviously I'd suggest doing it ~in the cloud~ on a reserved IP with stable documented software, but the rest is just Normal Admin Stuff. Certainly doable and Gmail doesn't whine. (The key is DKIM+SPF+rdns and checking blacklists.)

Watching a rocket launch made me really curious how rockets are stabilized. they're like a pencil balanced on its eraser with fire under it. why doesn't the tiniest fluctuation in air currents cause it to tip away from vertical, faster and faster until it's rocketing sideways?

Found a good explainer:
https://www.nar.org/nar-products/rocket-stability/

it turns out the answer is "put the center of gravity ahead of the center of pressure", that way the influence of air currents is a stabilizing negative feedback loop.