l33tminion: (Default)
DEI seems to be getting a lot of attention as the current administration's stalking horse, including in the aftermath of a deadly plane crash. It seems the usual pattern goes something like this:

1. "Racism and sexism are non-issues now, we need to get rid of this DEI stuff and replace it with hiring on pure merit!"
2. "Every time you see someone who's not a white man in basically any job, you call them a DEI hire and assume they're not qualified, doesn't that sort of undermine that premise?"
3. "But I wouldn't assume that if it weren't for all this DEI lowering standards."
4. The fact that people other than white men are hired for basically any job is used as evidence that DEI hasn't been rooted out hard enough, return to step 1.

(In the meantime, the current administration is working hard to restore their favored system of getting their preferred people into key jobs, nepotism.)

The Heist

Jan. 20th, 2025 09:55 pm
l33tminion: (Default)
Mystery Hunt was this weekend, run by my team this time. I helped a minimal amount, but I did work hard through the actual run, mostly answering a run of hint requests. The hunt had a noir mystery theme, and the team did a phenomenal job and wrote some great puzzles.

In other news, the Biden administration wrapped up with an bizarre, implausible declaration that the ERA had actually been ratified years ago. (I mean props to Virginia, but that was in January of 2020, so why didn't Biden say anything about that before now. And it would require courts to decide that Congress can't place a deadline on ratification and states can't rescind their decision to ratify before an amendment is approved, it's doubtful they'd agree with either.) And also blanket preemptive pardons for his siblings and siblings-in-law, Mark Milley, and the Jan 6th Committee. I can see the perspective that the people in question have a patriotic duty to defend in court against any baseless, vindictive prosecutions Trump decides to bring. But also can see the perspective that you shouldn't just stand by and let people be put through that, when Trump has given some very strong indication that he intends to bring vindictive prosecutions for nonexistent crimes, without regard to whether he has anything that could reasonably prove a case to a jury. Gruesome stuff.

Trump spent the days before his inauguration launching two separate cryptocurrency scams. He kicked off his administration by withdrawing from the WTO and Paris Climate agreements, pardoning the rioters who attacked police officers as a small component of his plan to illegally toss entire states' 2020 elections, setting up legal efforts to trash the Constitutional guarantees of citizenship, and preparing for mass deportations. Elon Musk gave the Nazi salute twice in a row at his inauguration speeches. He's such a damned edgelord, the "how could you think I would do something like [thing I just obviously did]" gaslighting is the whole point to these people. Well, half the point. (To clarify, there are lots of gestures where you end up with a straight arm and hand angled down at some point in the gesture which don't look like that, this is video. And that is not how a my heart goes out gesture is generally done.)

The speech that most comes to my mind today is this one.
l33tminion: (Default)
It's been a week where I've been too late to write before I'm really tired.

Once of Trump's criminal cases came to (technically) an actual close this week, with a sentence of him getting told that he's been a very naughty boy and they hope that gives him something to think about while he's President. So the only thing that Trump gets epsilon more than zero consequences for is the least serious crime for which he's been criminally indicted: Committing petty frauds to be slightly more effective in covering up a scandal that would have sunk any previous Presidential candidate, in the immediate aftermath of another scandal that would have sunk any previous Presidential candidate. It's too crazy to contemplate.

I've been playing a lot of The Outer Wilds this week. Definitely a great game, I recommend it and recommend people play it as spoiler-free as possible. It's an exploration-focused game, and one of the interesting things about it is just how dedicated it is to knowledge being the thing that progresses you through the game: Not items, not ability upgrades, just knowledge. Fascinating setting and a great sci-fi yarn. (And a musical motif that is now perpetually running through my head.)

I've been watching some of the runs from AGDQ this week, and that's been a lot of fun, too.
l33tminion: (Default)
It's a new year.

Trip to Texas over winter break went all right. Wonderful Christmas together. Fun time with the cousins. Took a trip to the Fort Worth Stockyards to see the longhorn cattle drive, went to the Crayola Experience (like the Lego Discovery Center but swap blocks for crayons) on Erica's birthday.

Transitions impend. The Biden administration limps along as the lamest of ducks. Biden commuting the death sentences of most of the federal death row was the most notable good bit. Leaving a few exceptions out (the surviving Boston Marathon Bomber, e.g.) was, well, I can understand the choice. I would have preferred a more unequivocal rejection of the death penalty. But if Biden thinks it should be reserved for a narrower set of cases and grants clemency consistent with that, it's a step in the right direction.

I finished watching The Magicians before that show departs from Netflix in a few days. I'm glad I finished that and ambivalent about having started. It was at least an interesting take on its source material. I read Seasonal Fears, the sequel to Seanan McGuire's Middlegame, another dip in the highly-specific alchemical conspiracy American road-trip novel genre. Was good. I also read Nostalgebraist's latest bit of web-fiction, The Apocalypse of Herschel Schoen in which a mad prophet discovers the true meaning of Christmas. Like the author's other work, it's very interesting and well written.

Simulacrum

Dec. 21st, 2024 11:49 am
l33tminion: Join the Enlightened! (Enlightened)
After many years of playing the game really slowly, I advanced to the final level of the usual progression in Ingress. Leaving nothing to do but start again. It has been interesting to revisit the progression through the first few levels with the game's latest mechanics. Also, it plays the spooky chimes in the background when you start again.

I just finished reading Matt Yglesias's One Billion Americans. Very good book, but a bit depressing in the current political context. American politics around immigration have long since been a messed-up bundle of incoherent compromises. And the state of it now is beyond bad. Seems the Republicans want us to enjoy a shrinking population as soon as possible, and squander one of America's greatest national strengths. Will there ever be a billion Americans, or an America with national infrastructure far better than it is currently? Seems very uncertain.
l33tminion: (Default)
This week we had all sorts of weather.

On an extremely foggy Tuesday, I took Erica and her friend George to a robotics night at the Somerville High School. Despite the fog, it was a pretty nice day, and the holiday lights in the neighborhood are really beautiful.

On Wednesday, there was pouring rain. One of the Big Dig tunnels flooded in downtown Boston, which was a bit of a mess.

This weekend, Julie and I took Erica to the Saturday matinee of The Nutcracker by the Boston Ballet. Was even better than I expected, and I expected it would be very good. The Ballet also has a pretty large children's ensemble, which they put to funny and adorable use in the performance.

Winter break fast approaches. Hard to believe the year is almost over.
l33tminion: (Default)
It seems that Erica already has a Halloween costume in mind for next year.

I've been working on planning spring travel already. And need to get the dates for the summer filled in. Trying to have a somewhat more relaxing travel schedule this year and bank a little vacation time for next.

Started working with Erica on cleaning out some of the toy bins, but there are still more to do.

Finished reading Charmed Life to Erica. She wants to get the next in the series. In the meanwhile, reading The Marvelous Land of Oz, aka the book where L. Frank Baum tries to have a different main character before getting roped into writing about Dorothy again.
l33tminion: (Default)
Went home with Julie and Erica for Thanksgiving. Quick trip this time, but was great to see the family. Melissa's family was in town, too.

This year I am thankful that of all the terrors at humanity's doorstep, some of them have been put off so far, and some could continue to.

Best reading from this weekend is Noah Smith's post No, You Are Not on Indigenous Land, a really cogent takedown of (including nominally-"decolonial") ethnonatialism.

The latest political news is Joe Biden's blanket pardon of his son, Hunter Biden. It is sad that we have come to this, and despicable that Biden is reneging on his promises. Unlike Charles Kushner, the father of Trump's son-in-law who he pardoned for witness tampering and then nominated for an ambassadorship, Hunter Biden surely wouldn't have been prosecuted but for his association with the President in question. But say, maybe Biden should just go ahead and pardon the January 6 criminals himself at this point. Surely they are more worthy: After all, not only their prosecutions but also their crimes would not have happened but for Trump.
l33tminion: (Default)
Back in the "I don't know what to write", but I said maybe I'd write more about Magic: the Gathering, so that's a thing I can write about.

I play Magic these days mostly on MTG Arena, almost entirely Standard (with cards from a rotating cast of the most-recent sets). Fairly recently, Standard rotation was extended to a three-year cycle from two. This year, two new things are happening to Standard.

First, there's a new core set out, released last week. Core sets in Magic are meant as an introduction and retrospective, they tend to feature a lot of reprints and have a greater breadth of theme and setting instead of focusing on one particular setting and story. The latest set, Foundations, will get special treatment in the rotation, with a current plan that it will stay in Standard for at least five years. Foundations seems like a great core set, but I wonder if it will start to overstay its welcome before the time is up. I haven't been the biggest fan of the extended Standard rotation, the changes don't seem to shake things up as much as I like. (Speaking of core sets, the superb Magic video essay channel Rhystic Studies took the occasion to do a retrospective on 7th Edition, the 2001 Magic core set that was also a turning point for the role that sort of set plays in the game.)

Second, the other-IP-as-Magic sets "Universes Beyond", are coming to Standard. Wizards has been doing a lot more of that recently. Alternative card art aside, unique cards based around existing media franchises have been coming into various Magic formats. They did a Lord of the Rings set that went straight into Modern (a non-rotating format of cards from mainline sets starting in 2003, plus some newer sets added directly to Modern and older non-rotating formats), and a Warhammer 40,000 set for Commander (a popular non-rotating format with a multiplayer focus and a few twists to the rules). But this year, Standard will include sets based on Final Fantasy (which fits well enough, I guess), Marvel: Spider Man (??!), and something TBA (who knows).

It's interesting because Magic is a game that invests pretty heavily in its aesthetic elements. Obviously, those elements function in a mnemonic role as well: "Deal three damage to any target" is easier as "Lightning Bolt" than "spell 261". But I do get the impression that Magic-but-bland would be a much less memorable and enjoyable game. So how about Magic-but-whatever-the-heck-this-is? Magic has always drawn all sorts of influences from all sorts of media franchises and tropes, but "pop-culture mashup" is still not its primary aesthetic. But at some point, it might be. The Universes Beyond stuff has been a commercial success for Wizards so far, and these "what ifs" have an appeal, so it's natural for them to give the goose a squeeze. I still get the sense it's different when that becomes the thing the game is. Unsurprisingly, in addition to excitement, this trend in the development of the game has also caused a lot of at least apprehension in the player-base. I don't know how it will play out.
l33tminion: Join the Enlightened! (Enlightened)
It's hard to feel like I'm ever going to rest and recover. Julie was pretty busy this week. The weekend was a little better.

Saturday, I got out to play a bit of Ingress in beautiful weather, wrapping up an in-game event celebrating 12 years since the game was released. I still really like the game's ability to give me random reasons to visit places I wouldn't otherwise. This time, I ended up at Bell Rock Memorial Park in Malden.

Today, I went to the art museum in the morning and wandered the galleries with Julie while Erica had her art lesson. In the afternoon I took Erica climbing and cooked dinner.

I just finished reading Erica The Boxcar Children, which was enjoyable, but also one of the most edges-sanded-off things I've ever read.

Erica's wanted to play Splendor a bunch this week, and she's getting quite good at the game, but is frustrated that she can't win consistently. (Played six games this week, and she managed to win one, but most of the others were quite close, including a tied-at-15 game where I won by having one fewer development cards, basically the closest score possible short of an actual tie.)

I've been enjoying the new Magic set, Foundations, a core set of sorts that will be in Standard (the "just recent sets" variant of the game) for an extended time. It seems like the game will be changing quite a bit in the coming year, and not just for that reason. More about that later maybe if I get to writing about it.
l33tminion: fig. 1. America. (AMERICA!)
The second Trump administration sure is getting crazy real fast. Huckabee for Ambassador to Israel and Rubio for Secretary of State seems a pretty clear signal that the Trump administration policy on the Israel/Palestine conflict will be the one they were obviously going to have. (But maybe for the American Muslims who supported him, that outcome is (at least) their second choice?) Gaetz for Attorney General and Gabbard for DNI are truly insane picks. There's a reason why Trump is demanding that potential Senate Majority Leaders allow him to sidestep the confirmation process. Musk and Ramaswamy will be heading up a "department" that I expect will be a Presidential commission and not an actual executive branch department despite the name. I can only assume be in charge of posting the dumbest memes about doing maximum-chaos layoffs government edition and cutting social security.

Trump definitely has a dramatic vision to put forward, though. Scratch-built charter cities (at the same time as broad-based tariffs), flying cars (not joking), Hoovervilles (putting it charitably) for the homeless, institutionalization for the mentally ill (this post seems relevant), stealing the (e.g.) Harvard endowment and giving it to white people who didn't get into Harvard. Half of it's nonsense or self-contradictory, a lot of it's firmly in the "won't happen and would be a disaster if it did" category, but it does make me wish Dems could articulate a vision of change that's not so damn knob-twiddling.

Now that more of the election numbers are in, it looks like Harris did better than she could have, and far outran what one could reasonably expect Biden would have. Harris outperformed her national result in swing states, plausibly saved the Dems multiple Senate seats, did better than most other incumbents globally in recent elections. Also, Biden was sitting on internal polling numbers that were just catastrophic, it really takes Biden's decision to stay in from "bad in hindsight" to "what was he even thinking?!"

It really does seem like there were a lot of voters splitting tickets for bizarre or incoherent reasons. AOC did an interesting thread about the reasoning of AOC/Trump voters. A lot of people really want a firebrand and aren't that interested in the specifics.

Trump also seems to have a unique ability to turn out voters so disinterested that they won't even bother to check a box downballot when they've already shown up to vote for him. No wonder pollsters have had an impossible time calibrating those likely voter models.

Biden is of course shaking hands with Trump and planning an orderly transition instead of drone striking Mar-a-Lago or something, concluding (correctly) that you can't save America's democratic institutions by preemptively destroying them first. If America recognizably survives the first term of the Party of Trump, it will be because its institutions are more robust (or at least more complicated) than that, and also because Trump is not that competent and will probably continue to never take the job seriously while being a spectacularly bad manager. And also because of a lot of individual decisions made along the way. We are all, of course, in for it.
l33tminion: (Default)
Long weekend this weekend. With Julie busy with startup life, I was on parenting duty all three days.

Saturday, I took Erica to her swim lesson, then convinced her to go to cafe meetup with Ingress teammates with the prospect of frozen custard at Abbot's after, only to realize after that it was closed for the season. What sort of Boston ice cream place closes for the winter?! We tried to go climbing later in the afternoon only to find that was also closed for a competition. So we went to Hub Comics for a bit and then home.

Sunday, I did go climbing with Erica, and also ice skating at Veteran's Rink. So I was pretty sore after.

Today, Erica visited a friend in the morning while I did my usual workout, and then we went to the science museum. After, we took a walk across North Bank Bridge and the Gridley Locks to have a snack at Night Shift. Beautiful day, the fall continues to be unusually warm.
l33tminion: ...you're &%$@ing kidding me, right? (Jon Stewart)
Americans have voted and it seems our President will once again be this guy. A lot of it seems to come down to "when there's inflation, some Americans will just flip the lever". (People hate unemployment, too, when it happens to them, but inflation happens to everyone.) But lot of it comes down to (however little it conforms to my taste) "Trump is liked, and Harris is not". There was a lot of ticket-splitting this election in Trump's favor: North Carolina is most notable for Dems winning five of six state-wide races while Harris lost, Dem Senators won Michigan and Wisconsin while Harris lost. It seems like Casey will lose Pennsylvania, but that remains as of yet too close to call long after the Presidential race in the state was called for Trump. Arizona hasn't been called, but Trump is likely to win and Lake likely to lose.

Harris 2024 did worse than Biden 2020 among virtually every cross-section. It was broad-based. Gen X have taken their place on the Boomer-throne as the generation that utterly prevents America from having anything nice. (Seniors have actually cooled a hair on Republicans because they might actually gut Social Security and Medicare this time and also tried to kill them all for the sake of the economy during COVID.) But Gen Z men in particular are also taking a hard-right turn. With luck like this America's going to end up with SK-level gender politics, which is real, real worrying.

Not doing a "reasons why Harris lost" breakdown (or even a "why the polls underestimated Trump"; they did by a little, but it doesn't seem that interesting, likely voter models just continually struggle with the guy's unique appeal). Nate Silver does a good enough job with that. Some of it's real "what can you possibly do about that?" stuff. Biden certainly should have stepped away from running for reelection much earlier. (And maybe he should've made a different choice for VP.) I'm hearing second-hand that some people cited the lack of a competitive Dem primary as a cause for them voting Trump over Harris, and that seems an insane (and probably dishonest) reason to prefer Trump over Harris. But people hate having the establishment govern their choices, and there are clearly no sly sophisticates trying to arm-twist anyone into thinking that voting for Trump is a good idea. Biden saved America from the disaster that was Trump, only to deliver America right back into the disaster that is Trump.

Harris should have gone on Rogan, I guess. In hindsight, seems like it couldn't have made matters worse.

2025 seems poised to be worse than 2017. And the years of the first Trump administration were a mess, despite starting in relatively sunny circumstances. This isn't the first Trump administration, but it is the first Presidential administration of the Party of Trump. This Trump administration won't (sometimes repeatedly) stock State, Defense, and Nat Sec posts with inveterate Trump-haters (apparently) who resist his (allegedly) brilliant ideas. Also, this Trump is really not holding it together physically or mentally and 2016 Trump didn't really have it together in the first place.

Moloch has seen its shadow and we're slated for four more years of chaos. Unfortunately, we will see how it goes.
l33tminion: (Default)
* If, in fact, she does end up winning. Which she definitely might not. All of the range of outcomes still seem very realistically on the table in this actual unknown present.

The polls said it would be close, but it turned out that didn't reflect the actual vote due to some combination of:
  • There was non-response bias among Republicans who are no longer on board after voting for Trump in 2016 and 2020 (either because they just generally don't want to talk about it, or because they don't want to specifically talk about it in front of a Trump-supporting spouse), but they're otherwise very similar to those who are still on board.
  • There was non-response bias among people who want a woman to be President but still have 2016 PTSD.
  • Very late deciders broke in favor of Harris because Trump cannot manage to be normal and in fact is acting all the more extreme and crazy.
  • Enough Republican-supporting Puerto Ricans living in swing states belatedly noticed that Trump hates them and will probably try to deport them, "they're actually Americans" be damned.
  • Turns out Selzer's still got it.
  • Turning over the campaign's entire get-out-the-vote effort to Elon Musk (because Trump's using all his money for other things for some reason) turned out to be a bad idea.
l33tminion: (Default)
It was a warm day today, but windy, and it seems all the trees in Cambridge that were late to the party decided to shed all their leaves at once. Pretty, but seemed like enough sharp, swirling edges to be downright perilous.

I had a dentist appointment today, which went all right.

I have so many things to ramp up on at work. Emscripten is confusing. WebGPU is fun but graphics programming is always confusing. Another of my more senior teammates is leaving the team, moving on to another thing at Google that's a great fit for him, but I'll miss working with him. So much churn this year.

Other links:

My brother now has an Etsy store for his wildlife photography.

Bop Spotter (h/t SMTM)

Cargo airships might be a big deal soon. Nifty if it pans out.

Hollow Eve

Oct. 31st, 2024 09:54 pm
l33tminion: (Default)
Well, I got in a few days of regular writing before I dipped beneath the waves again.

Today is Halloween, and it's not even the scariest day in the next week. I really do want the madness to end. 2017-2020 was objectively nuts, and that was before the realignment within the Republican Party had really completed and Trump was still being arm-twisted into hiring people to important questions who resisted his dumbest ideas (a major restraint for someone so bad at in-person confrontation). Stuff like this is going to be hilarious if he loses (Four Seasons all over again), but for now I just can't deal with the fact that it's so close.

Took Erica trick-or-treating and she had a good time time, except for encountering someone in one of those stilt ghost costumes that she found completely terrifying. The weather was warm today, high of almost 80, so the evening was summery.

Work is very busy, and once again one of my more senior colleagues is changing teams. Too much churn this year.
l33tminion: (Default)
The Halloween events continue. Friday, there was the Character Day parade at Erica's school (a K-3 event, so her last time participating). This evening, Julie took Erica to a haunted house at Harvard, which apparently Erica found more than a bit scary.

This afternoon, we all went to see The Wild Robot, which was pretty fun.

Work has been pretty busy, as my team has been ramping up on phase two of a big project. Speaking of which (belatedly, I missed mentioning this here earlier), the end of the first phase of that means a good chunk of our work has been publicly released, it's out in alpha on Android Jetpack (announcement blog post), the cross-platform C++ core is on GitHub here. I'm doing a lot more web graphics studying at work, spent some of my time last week on the WebGPU codelab here, which was pretty interesting, it's a powerful API.
l33tminion: (Default)
Today, went to Boda Borg for the first time with some of my work teammates as a fun event. Was pretty fun, I probably enjoyed it more than Level99. Afterwards, we went to Mineirao Steakhouse for lunch, which was delicious.

After an abbreviated workday, went to a Dads of Camberville Dad's Night Out event. A very nice break to get a night out for myself after a lot of extra-hard work on the home-front. This one was at The Sea Hag in Harvard, a new-ish (2023) bar from the same owners as Grendel's Den. Food and drinks were very tasty, and the staff were very hospitable and on top of things. Was good to see various people in the dads group again.
l33tminion: ...you're &%$@ing kidding me, right? (Jon Stewart)
The quotes attributed to Trump in that Atlantic piece are just insane: "I need the kind of generals that Hitler had", "You guys [American soldiers] are all just killers", "It doesn't cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!" [arguing why he should stiff the family of a murdered soldier whose funeral he'd offered to pay for]. It's all just lies, they'll say. People who say these things about Trump (people like his former chief of staff, other chief of staff, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Defense Secretary, other Defense Secretary, Vice President, Secretary of State, other Secretary of State, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Education, communications director, other communications director, other other communications director, various advisors, personal lawyer, White House lawyer, etc.) are just disloyal, deranged, and bad. (And Trump staffing his administration with so many such people reflects badly on anyone other than Trump himself.)

The whole thing is insane. It's insane this election even seems so close. And seems on pace to get even crazier. And for all I know it's just a lead-in to another nightmare Trump administration. (Looking back through my old posts a bit reminds me of just how chaotic it was, and also how much more I had to say in my writing.)
l33tminion: (Default)
Erica had a dentist appointment this morning. They took full-jaw x-rays this time. The images are pretty cool to look at, since you can see exactly where the remaining baby teeth are, with adult teeth lined up beneath them. They recommended she get a consult with an orthodontist about an underbite. In the lead-up to this, Erica seems to have take a special interest in braces and is talking up how much she wants to get them, which seems kind of odd.

(Speaking of Erica special interests, she had a class field trip last week to Plimoth Patuxet and has also been talking about that frequently. Apparently she really wants to go again as soon as she can.)

The dentist's office is right across the street from Mount Auburn Cemetary, which is really beautiful, and I convinced Erica to take a brief walk around the nearby portion before her visit this time.

The rest of the day was pretty busy. Erica's friend George was over to our house again this evening, and I made mac and cheese for the kids. They played a trivia game that Julie picked up from some bargain bin and also a bit of Mario Kart. Though Erica is getting good at the game, she's still easily frustrated when something goes wrong.
Page generated Jul. 7th, 2025 03:39 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios