nikhil.io

four hundred and eighty posts

Letting the Cat Out of the Bag

From the United Automobile Worker magazine, 1937: “What did you tell that man just now?” “I told him to hurry.” “What right do you have to tell him to hurry?” “I pay him to hurry.” “How much do you pay him?” “Four dollars a day.” “Where do you get the money?” “I sell products.” “Who makes the produ…

Cowsay! 🐮

I love me my cowsay. It’s a lovely amusement that greets me every time I open a terminal session. People typically use it with the fortune command but my cow moos a random developer excuse. I generate that using this bash function and this invocation: command -v cowsay >/dev/null 2>&1 &am…

Sears Homes

Sears, the department store, sold DIY homes via catalog for 32 years between 1908 and 1940 through a program called Sears Modern Homes. They offered 447 different housing styles which you can see here. The designs were not ‘remarkable’ in any way: Sears themselves admit that they were “not an innova…

Diatoms

They look like priceless brooches and are tremendously important to our planet. Emphases mine: Living diatoms make up a significant portion of the Earth’s biomass: they generate about 20 to 50 percent of the oxygen produced on the planet each year, take in over 6.7 billion metric tons of silicon…

On Knowing Everything When One is Young

When he was young he had prided himself on being clever. Walking down the street, not even thinking anything, just walking along like every other moron, he’d had a distinct sense of how clever he was. He’d never done anything with that cleverness except write stupid articles and make occasionally…

On Mullets

People ask me why in 2023 I’m still rocking a mullet. Easy answer. Without the lettuce I’m just a guy that says dumb shit all the time. When I say dumb shit with the mullet, it’s like my face is saying one thing out front, and my mullet is apologizing out back. My mullet is “Dumb shit out front, I…

On Convenience in 2022

Definitely the future of television I had in mind was me having to google every movie I want to watch to see if it’s currently in one of its one-month windows on any of the seven streaming services I pay for. This is way easier than buying a DVD. I love it. @chasemit…

Crinoids!

These are fossilized crinoids found in Western Australia by Tom Kapitany. Crinoids are animals and belong to the phylum Eichinodermata which includes starfish and sea urchins (and they all have “pentameral symmetry”). This is all well and good but these things, in their fossilized state, look like s…

My Awesome Downtown Pad

I feel very personally attacked by Mr. Lovenstein. And somehow glad I’m not the only person who, for instance, purchases a glorious WaterRower1 and proceeds to give it a thousand cumulative and approximate ‘pulls’ over three years. 🤦‍♀️ Because he saw it in House of Cards and thought it looked sic…

On Morals versus Ethics

What is the difference between ethics and morality? A morality functions according to principle, while an ethics functions according to experimentation. A morality presupposes a discontinuity between principle and action, while an ethics presupposes a continuity of action and character. A morality…

On Living

What makes life worth living? No child asks itself that question. To children life is self-evident. Life goes without saying: whether it is good or bad makes no difference. This is because children don’t see the world, don’t observe the world, don’t contemplate the world, but are so deeply immerse…

Shorting Things

You predict (or have insider information) that the price of lawnmowers will fall. The current market price of a lawnmower is $1,000. You go to Eddie’s Lawnmower Rental Company and rent a lawnmower from Eddie for $10 a day. He doesn’t care about you returning the same lawnmower; he just wants you to…

Netsuke

Summary of Wikipedia article: Japanese kimono didn’t have pockets. They needed something to store their stuff in. So they made containers that they hung from their kimonos’ sashes1. The part that secured the container to the sash at the top was called a netsuke (“root attached”.) Here’s a really cut…

On Sitting on your Arse

I like nothing more in the world than sitting on my ass doing nothing. And it’s not my fault I have this attitude, because I happen to have an amazingly comfortable ass. It may not look like much, but if you could sit on this baby for two minutes, you’d realize that getting off this ass would be a…

Kali

Unknown artist, circa 1800 The terrifying goddess Kali, wearing a necklace of skulls and holding a severed head in one of her hands, is worshiped here by other gods. From the left, we see Indra, Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer). Kali is associated with viole…

An Anglerfish

What a strange, strange creature. Those bumps remind me of rivets on a submarine. But because they are anglerfish, the bumps are even more bizarre than you’d expect: Since anglerfish are deep sea creatures, it took scientists years and years to figure this stuff out. They could never find a male…

On Fear (and Lethargy)

The question is, what does it mean to be living a fear-based agenda? Then your life is always constricted. Then it’s sabotaging the expression of your possibilities in life. Jung said once, in a book published in 1912, “The spirit of evil is negation of the life force by fear.” That’s strong langu…

Car Silhouettes

Henry Lin has a degree in Architectural Design is a “a lover of all things transportative”. He draws really lovely Car Silhouettes 😍 Here are a few. Chevy Corvette C3 (1968-1972) Jaguar E-Type (1961-1968) Lagonda Rapide (1961 - 1964) Mercedes-Benz S-Class (W221) Mercedes-Benz CLS400 (C218) Bu…

The Eye: Calanthek

This is a short film done entirely with the Early Access version of Unreal Engine 5. It’s only around eight minutes long and took six weeks to make but its plot is more exciting and coherent than whatever the heck was happening in Prometheus1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kXWNfW9ia8 Some example…

On Living Together

You’ve said that, despite being married three times, you’ve been in love only once. Do you think you might have a particularly higher bar than other people? No, I think I’m not that interested. I’m much happier on my own. I can spend as much time with somebody as I want to spend, but I’m not looki…

I am 20

In 1967, the Films Division of India1 asked all kinds of 20-year olds about their dreams and how they felt about the future of a nation that was, itself, 20 years old. Here’s the original video. A lot of the kids who speak English in the video (starting at 5:00) attend the august Indian Institute of…

When Does It End?

COVID Theater has become a sad thing to behold these days. Do we still wear masks? If transmission is mostly airborne, why do we get to take them off at restaurants to eat our food when droplets from a sneeze can travel in excess of 25 feet? What’s all this talk about a second booster? Is Omicron so…

On Old Gods

In the succession of religions, there are only so many ways the old gods can end up. They can fade away, in which case they are lost to us for good; they can be held up to scorn as pagan demons who persisted in their old, evil ways; or they can be recruited into the new faith as its servants and d…

On Unorthodox Marx

He leads the existence of a real bohemian intellectual. Washing, grooming and changing his linen are things he does rarely, and he likes to get drunk. Though he is often idle for days on end, he will work day and night with tireless endurance when he has a great deal of work to do. He has no fi…

Telugu Script Components

Telugu is a phonetic language, written from left to right, with each character representing generally a syllable. There are 52 letters in the Telugu alphabet: 16 Achchulu which denote basic vowel sounds, 36 Hallulu which represent consonants. In addition to these 52 letters, there are several semi…

The Chess Set

The Chess Sets used at the World Chess Championships cost $350 (plus $700 if you want the electronic piece tracking), are likely out of stock if you’d like one, take a lot of training and practice to make, are woodworked in Amritsar, India, and were designed by Daniel Weil, a former partner at Penta…

On Luxury

Danny Pudi keeping it real. /misc/l/larry-ducktales-danny-pudi.mp4 “Uh… a luxury you can’t live without.” “A luxury I can’t live without… Coffee. I really like it.” “Luxury… you can get it anywhere.” “Ah I guess, yeah. Like good coffee…” “I love coffee too.” “I like nice socks.” “Socks. Your socks…

Levels of Jhana

When I was a kid, I’d close my eyes and allow the strange shapes caused by the night lamp and blood flow in my eyelids to put on a small dance and lull me to sleep. Many a time, as I’d relax and drift away, I would suddenly feel this ‘inflation’ and loss of personal boundary and sense of geometry. I…

On Garlic

“Garlic is divine. Few food items can taste so many distinct ways, handled correctly. Misuse of garlic is a crime. Old garlic, burnt garlic, garlic cut too long ago and garlic that has been tragically smashed through one of those abominations, the garlic press, are all disgusting. Please treat you…

Peace Lily are Hard to Maintain

I have a dying peace lily. I’m a bit attached to it and don’t know that I’ll be able to save it. Searching the internet for any hope led me to this post (cached) which made me feel slightly better about my inexperience. The first mistake is relying upon the plant’s visual cue that needs water: the l…

Plurals in Python

>>> n = 0 >>> print "%d item%s" % (n, "s"[n==1:]) 0 items >>> n = 1 >>> print "%d item%s" % (n, "s"[n==1:]) 1 item >>> n = 2 >>> print "%d item%s" % (n, "s"[n==1:]) 2 items # If you might want to print negative items, add abs to the test: >&g…

Super Mario Songs

Koji Kondo is a “sound designer” who composed music for Super Mario Bros. He was inspired by these songs. Music Artist Song The Main “Overworld” Theme T-Square Sister Marian (3:08) When you go down the Warp Pipes Friendship Let’s not talk about it When you get a Star Piper Summe…

The Universal Estimation Table

Estimate Actual Time Very Easy 1 Hour Easy 2 Hours Quite Easy 4 Hours Looks Quite Easy 6 Hours Average 8 Hours Looks Average 12 Hours No Clue 16 Hours Seems Complex 24 Hours Complex 30 Hours Very Complex 40 Hours Can Take Some Time 48 Hours Fuck 60 Hours Yeah Looks Pre…

Two Messages for Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day to the fathers, stepfathers, grandfathers, and father figures who enrich our character, love us unconditionally, and give so much of themselves every day so we can live lives worthy of their dreams and sacrifices. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. And, this is real (as much as you…

Floofballs

Vox on something I’ve always wondered: Why tennis pros reject balls before a serve (and what happens to the ones they do.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChzL17zV9hA More fluff ⇒ more drag ⇒ more time for your opponent to react. So they’re looking for a ball with less fluff for their first serve, a…

AppleTalk

“For all that we’ve been able to achieve while many of us have been separated, the truth is that there has been something essential missing from this past year: each other,” [Tim Cook] said. “Video conference calling has narrowed the distance between us, to be sure, but there are things it simply…

Buy Good Shit

Neil Panchal on substituting shitty, ineffective, and expensive consumer-grade items with their industrial and military grade equivalents. Emphases mine: The average consumer is an idiot, so the bean counters keep milking them. Let’s stick RGB lights in what used to be the BMW, you know the ultima…

How to Make a Dorodango

Hikaru Dorodango means “Shining Mudcake”. Start with a lump of mud and end with a highly polished sphere. Absolutely amazing. Here’s a short NatGeo video about Bruce Gardner, an artist who makes a lot of these. He says it took him 30 tries to make his first perfect one. https://www.youtube.com/watch…

Chomsky on Russell

[…] I think late 50’s he was asked once “Why are you wasting your time with CND demonstrations when you could be working on logic and philosophy and doing something of lasting significance?” And his answer wasn’t bad. He said “If I’m not out there demonstrating, there won’t be anyone around to rea…

We Are Mark Wood

Reddit user and evident Mark Wood fan @kanyay-west put together this list of England’s All-Time Cricketing Best when asked “What’s your country’s all time ODI XI?” I’ve reproduced it here and formatted it for clarity. I laughed a lot to this and am a rather silly person 🙏♥️ Mark Wood Mark Wood Ma…

On Never Giving Up

Whenever I get discouraged and want to quit something, I remember the words of my then 3 year-old after she puked carrots all over the living room floor: “I’m gonna need more carrots.” Jessica Valenti Now write down “You’re gonna need more carrots” on a sticky and look at it from time to time ♥️…

The Sand Octopus

Octopus kaurna lacks chromatophores like other octopuses. So it just burrows instead 😍🐙. It’s the only known octopus to bury itself completely like this. /misc/s/sand-octopus.mp4 The process begins with the octopus using its siphon to inject water into the sand, creating quicksand-like condition…

The Diabetic Racist

Matt Rowan is a family man, a Christian, and a former youth pastor (so we’re off to a fantastic start already). At a high school basketball game, this pillar of the community called children “f****** n******s” for that grave sin of actually kneeling during the national anthem. On the video, Rowan…

On a Program’s Scope

“Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.” Coined by Jamie Zawinski (who called it the “Law of Software Envelopment”) to express his belief that all truly useful programs experience pressure to evolve into toolki…

The Chrome Dino

Here’s a fairly recent (Dec 2018) interview with the creators of chrome://dino. It was called Project Bolan (which I had to look up), had 270M games played every month1, with most users coming “from markets with unreliable or expensive mobile data, like India, Brazil, Mexico, or Indonesia” and took…

Stop Motion Love

Some surrealism: Jan Švankmajer - Lunch (Food 1992). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yM3uxZjdfo The shortest film ever nominated for an Academy Award: Fresh Guacamole by PES. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNJdJIwCF_Y Cooking utensil salad by Omozoc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da7iGPigiz4 And…

On A Good Burrito

I remember the very first burrito I had in the Mission District in San Francisco. My friend warned me that it would be “around the size of your forearm” and that, if I tried to finish it in a single sitting, I would be an idiot. It was, I did, I am 🙏 i do not fuck with any burrito without heft. i…

On Space Lasers

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites…

The Dracula Parrot

Also known as Pesquet’s parrot or the vulturine parrot. The Dracula parrot is a large, heavy bird, stretching to almost half a metre from beak to tail and weighing in at almost a kilogram. It maintains all that bulk by feeding almost exclusively on figs, which researchers suspect is why it ended…

On Consciousness

It is remarkable that mind enters into our awareness of nature on two separate levels. At the highest level, the level of human consciousness, our minds are somehow directly aware of the complicated flow of electrical and chemical patterns in our brains. At the lowest level, the level of single at…

Boncuk the Doggy

A devoted dog has spent days waiting outside a hospital in Turkey where her sick owner was being treated. The pet, Boncuk, which means bead, followed the ambulance that transported her owner, Cemal Senturk, to hospital in the Black Sea city of Trabzon on 14 January. She then made daily visits to…

The Kobayashi Maru Test

[…] the simulation takes place on a replica of a starship bridge, with the test-taker as captain and other Starfleet members, officers or other cadets, in other key positions. […] the cadet receives a distress signal stating that the civilian freighter Kobayashi Maru has struck a gravitic mine in…

A Malarkey-Free America

Here’s to a Malarkey-Free America 🇺🇸🍦😎 Things won’t magically start getting better. He isn’t perfect. But he certainly is a decent human being, if only because he isn’t malevolent narcissism incarnate. And unless your career depends on democratic dysfunction and systemic ineptitude, cruelty, and…

2021 Things

New Years resolutions for 2021 are gonna be like: travel to the other side of the room wear a different shirt cut screen time from 12 hours a day to 11 eat a vegetable bathe @alyssalimp…

We Love America the Mostest

I’m always curious what exactly Conservatives mean when they say they “Love America” because you hate most of the people who live here, you hate the civil liberties afforded by the Constitution, you hate the separation of Church and State. You might claim to love its economy but you hate all of th…

A Conservative Plan

By Amii James (Instagram). Context was the Tories but applies to our fine people stateside as well. Tory ministers saying “we owe it to children to keep schools open” might want to explain to me why they closed my youth centre, cut mental health services, underfunded my secondary school, stripped…