Category: Writing

The NFL regular season has come to a close, the college football season has reached its pinnacle, and some time tonight, the first real snow of the Winter is bearing down on my home, with a projected 8″ or so to fall over the next day and change. It’s been a weird one, but it finally feels like the season has arrived, cold and dark and lingering at the ends of things.

This time of year, it’s easy to see why many cultures did not label these days into months, merely allow them to coalesce, to freeze and harden into one long season between the days worth marking, where time stands still in the air, in the creek and crack, in the huddle for warmth, for life, awaiting to bloom again into some day beyond vision, but bound in expectation. Dreamed of, in the dancing flicker of the briefest of days.

Inputs

1: Watched the final Sunday of the NFL regular season, which was a spectacle of teams desperate to win and make the playoffs, teams desperate to get through one final game without serious injury and resting any player too valuable to see the field, players desperate to make incentive bonuses for things like sacks, yards, receptions, starts, and etc, and fanbases desperate for their head coaches to no longer be employed. Lot goin’ on!

My Bucs snuck their way into a division title for a third straight year, which used to be a seeming impossibility in the NFC South, and this with the consummate journeyman Baker Mayfield at the tiller of the pirate ship.¹I still think Progressive is massively missing out by not shooting new commercials with him living in Raymond James Stadium like they did with him in Cleveland. I’m not at all expecting the team to make it out of the first round, with the high-powered Eagles on their way down to Tampa next weekend, but it is gratifying to see a team not lay down when they had every right to throw in the towel after the post-Super Bowl era ground into mediocrity. Instead, a 9-8 Buccaneers get some commemorative hats and t-shirts and a chance to surprise. Fire the cannons!

2: Dug into the deep history nerdiness with the latest from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, on the evolution of the Roman sword throughout history. The swords of Rome were a pivot from the Grecian focus on spears and hoplite/phalanx tactics to an army using their side armament as their main weapon of battle.

Bret Devereaux does his typically great job, summarizing the various historical work of dozens of scholars including his own, to provide an overview of the shift in the form, and the influence of desired function on that form, as Romans encountered peoples of what is now eastern France, copied those designs, and evolved the design based on the foes they, themselves, were facing.

I wouldn’t call it the best on-ramp to Bret’s work, but it is a good example of both the depth of his scholarship and the way by which he shares that scholarship with an interested, non-academic populace. If you are looking for a good on-ramp, his various series on the historical accuracy of various pop cultural series make a great read and an informative one.

3: Posted up to watch Michigan and Washington face off for the last championship before the NCAA turns professional, forces a full bracket upon its conclusion, and heralds an official reckoning in a space once reserved for weighted opinions and barrels of ink to decide a championship.

Accompanied the event with another dose of bean dip. In case you’d like to try for yourself:

• 1 can of evaporated (NOT sweetened, condensed) milk (12oz)
• 1/2 lb white American cheese (Probably easiest to find in prepackaged slices). American cheese contains an ingredient that causes cheese to melt into a dippable liquid rather than a gritty suspension. I think technically you could get away with something else and calcium citrate or whatever, but I’m not here to instruct on gastronomy, just passing along the recipe for my dip.
• 1/2 lb pepper jack (or Monterey jack or whatever, I’m not your mother)
• 2-3 diced jalepenos
• 1 can refried beans
• Some spices. I roll with salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, coriander, onion powder, garlic powder. I don’t go real hard with any of them, it’s more of a spice to taste situation.

Melt the cheeses and milk on medium-low or so, stirring constantly (to prevent any burning against the pot bottom), then mix in the jalepenos, then the refried beans, then the spices. Don’t stick it on the stove and forget about it, I’m not coming over to scrape the bottom of your pots clean.

Projects In Progress

Webapp: stood up a test backend in Vapor to poke around at, mostly because I’m A) curious and B) have more recent experience with Swift than any other programming language, so I figure I should see what it has to offer. Overall, I don’t need it to do a lot. I need to be able to manage users, access levels, and an ability to generate specific accounts, then use the settings from those accounts to programmatically stand up webpages with similar frameworks and semi-unique text, graphics, and colors.

Of course, to accomplish this, I’m not remotely confident in how best to approach the problem, and am feeling my way through it like a blind man who’s heard the suggestion of where the doorways might be, and that there are probably tables and chairs to watch out for. It’s a stumble, and I’m not envying my shins, but I’m taking steps in a direction I believe to be forward.

Notes:

• 1
  I still think Progressive is massively missing out by not shooting new commercials with him living in Raymond James Stadium like they did with him in Cleveland.

Well look at that, we’ve reached the end of the first week of the new year. How’d it go? Did you allow yourself the space to reset? To admit the new? To permit the old to pass on from you? To set aside what no longer serves you and to bring upon you that which does?

It’s ok, I didn’t do great at that either. But the year is young, and we continue, and every day is an opportunity. Forgive yourself. Love yourself. Care enough for yourself to try again tomorrow, and each day to come. There is no destination, merely a direction and time.

Love y’all, talk to you next week.

Inputs

1: I mean, who didn’t watch Katt Williams go the hell off on the state of everything, past, present, and future?

This year of our lord 2024 got off on absolute fire, and I can only see it continuing right through the big ball dropping a year from now. May we all keep our receipts and speak our truths as they need to be spoken. I don’t know that I could have that gumption, but I admire those that can, and do, and speak their facts when they must needs be spoken.

2: Spent today reading a ton in a class on classroom management. Some of it echoes my experiences in school, and it’s remarkable the examples I can still remember that were the opposite of the stated advice and how those progressed.

Additionally, much of the advice for teachers is the same sort of advice I’ve given and taught to managers. Engaging without coercion or emotion, setting clear expectations that are reinforced through gaining agreement and timely repetition, acting with patience and kindness and empathy. It turns out people, regardless of age, are people, and react the same ways to the same stimuli.

This is not an endorsement of treating adults like children, more one of considering treating children a little more like adults, in respecting their autonomy and not infantilizing them just because they’re not far removed from infancy.

3: This story from 404 Media, on the Polish hacking trio who found DRM in Polish trains that was intentionally making them non-functional when, for instance, GPS found them in independent repair yards, or found them immobile for more that 21 days, or (for some weird reason) on December 21st. More locally, we’ve seen stories about John Deere bricking tractors when they’re found to be repaired with third-party equipment or by non-John Deere technicians, locking farmers into more expensive proprietary repair options on what is already equipment that costs thousands and thousands of dollars to own.

DRM has been a menace since the dawn of digital media and networked technology. It enforces unethical control schemes on the ownership of purchased products and locks users into relationships far beyond a purchasing agreement, all for their detriment and the company’s continued benefit. That we continue to allow such agreements, as well as those that remove outright ownership and turn it into a complicated licensing scheme, is an ongoing point of shame among our legal establishment and corporate community. One I don’t expect to change any time soon absent significant statutory force.

Projects In Progress

Spent most of today in a self-paced class. It’s been a while since I’ve done much structured learning. Bit of an adventure so far, mostly with the quality of my long-form notetaking.

Late one tonight, as I’ve been out of the house most of the day. Went out to spend some time with my Mom¹Hi mom! and keep her spirits up, which involved some quality time and consulting/completing a number of projects. One thing I learned: a lot of otherwise rather nice furniture really cuts costs on drawer slides.

Anyhow, some quick notes to keep the streak alive, and we’ll see if we’re more verbose tomorrow.

Inputs

1: Apparently Star Citizen is still milking people for money. Per Aftermath, they’ve recently announced a bundle for over $48,000. For a game that is still in Alpha, after ten years.

I’m continually extremely happy I chose Elite: Dangerous in the space sim wars. A game which has not only released an actual game, plus expansions, including a deathmatch feature, but has done very well by its subscribers without asking of them $1,000 at a pop. Insert Jesse Pinkman gif here.

2: Started a casual rewatch (aka, chose to play as background noise while I poke around on the internet) of Psych.

I’m a huge fan of the show, from the incredible ensemble cast (James Roday Rodriguez and Dulé Hill are a pairing as good as any in television history, and play off each other so naturally and confidently, from the start of the series through all three movies [so far!]), to an intelligent yet funny premise that keeps an adaptable level of tension as a through-line to the show, to an amazing array of guest stars. For anyone of my generation, there’s an “oh man, it’s that guy/girl” at least once every three episodes, including longer arcs from favorites like Cary Elwes, Rachael Leigh Cook, and Ally Sheedy.

If you’ve never seen the show, I’d highly recommend it. And if you do go and watch it, keep an eye out for the pineapples!

3: This article from American Prospect about the success of S Group in Finland with a different approach to capitalism, as a co-op, who have been able to compete aggressively on pricing due to not having to hew to the same level of profit maximization that publicly owned corporations are addicted to²And not actually legally obligated to. While there’s a misbelief that corporations are forced to maximize profits, they’re instead obligated to work in the best interests of shareholders and the company. That could mean maximizing quarterly earnings, but it doesn’t have to. The one is not necessarily the other, and allowing a mistaken belief proselytized by misguided right-wing economists in the 70s and 80s to drive the actions of every publicly owned company in the US is not only short-sighted but leads to perverse incentives that are easily and readily gamed. Just another of Reagan’s long-term gifts to America. Christ, what an asshole..

I’m always tangentially interested in other ways of doing business, from co-ops, to federations of co-ops like the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, to worker collectives like the Amana Colonies and the Amana Society³Yes, that Amana. and the work of the Amish and Mennonite peoples.

Projects In Progress

Not much today, at least in personal stuff. Got a bunch done for and alongside others though, which was nice.

Notes:

• 1
  Hi mom!
• 2
  And not actually legally obligated to. While there’s a misbelief that corporations are forced to maximize profits, they’re instead obligated to work in the best interests of shareholders and the company. That could mean maximizing quarterly earnings, but it doesn’t have to. The one is not necessarily the other, and allowing a mistaken belief proselytized by misguided right-wing economists in the 70s and 80s to drive the actions of every publicly owned company in the US is not only short-sighted but leads to perverse incentives that are easily and readily gamed. Just another of Reagan’s long-term gifts to America. Christ, what an asshole.
• 3
  Yes, that Amana.