tlhIngan Hol vIHaDtaH qaStaHvIS Hutvatlh jaj = I have studied the Klingon language for nine hundred days. This is a follow-up to my 800 Days of Klingon and my Two years of Klingon lessons essays. I still have the impression that the older, deleted form of Duolingo's Klingon course was superior. As I predicted, I've hit some…
Roughly in 1994, I wrote a computer program to compute the dates of the Full Moon. I originally did this to help schedule Wicca meetings; we like to meet on the Full Moon. I put the tables on the web because, in the mid-1990s, this kind of astronomical information was not readily available to members of the…
Well, I got a bit closer this time. I unpacked all the seder gear that had been sitting in my closet since last year (and before that had been sitting there since 2003). I actually set up the seder table (which was my gaming table, of course): I won't go into the details as I did last…
Every once in a while, I wonder if I'm overreacting to the whole "potential for long COVID" thing by continuing my strong isolation. My primary-care physician definitely thinks I am. Then I see this: I watched Physics Girl on YouTube. Even though I'm a physicist, Dianna Cowern often asked questions that challenged me. I usually learned something…
This is a description of a game topper from GameToppersLLC. It's not meant as a review per se, but a tale of my experience. TL;DR: The Watson Game Topper is a great product, but I wish I'd spent more time thinking about its physical properties: size, weight, etc. Tables and toppers I'll start by stating the obvious:…
I'm clearing out a closet. It was filled with all sorts of old camping gear. The most recent is about ten years old. I have some distant dream of attending Free Spirit Gathering again. But it's been years, I don't know how long it will be before pandemic safety issues don't dominate my lifestyle, and I need…
I dreamed about the NY Ren Faire again last night. To be sure, this wasn't the first time. I've dreamt about Faire periodically in the years since I left it. What's interesting to me is that my "mental map" of the Ren Faire in my dreams has slowly changed over the years. The layout changes: a new…
As a celebration of my streak of 800 days of learning Klingon, I've updated an earlier post I wrote on my two-year anniversary of daily Klingon lessons. The update includes a nice video about the language. I've also corrected a few errors. It may be the sort of thing that no one will notice, but knowing that…
Awhile back I wrote a review of Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. I liked the game, though I felt it had its flaws. Since that review, I've played other games, at least one of which (Ghost of Tsushima) was better than AC:V. Yet, in the long run, it was Assassin's Creed: Valhalla to which I kept returning. Part of…
About two years ago I wrote a series of posts on why I didn't want to upgrade the operating system on my 27-inch iMac. You've guessed it: I had to upgrade last October. That 2013 iMac was showing increasing problems, and there were software incompatibility issues that become too much to overlook. In this post, I'll review…