Gothic Waxwings
A few months ago Amanda mentioned finding an interesting painting at one of the local thrift stores. The painting showed birds against a dark background. The birds are incomplete, or hidden in the darkness, peering around a strange dark corner that cuts the painting vertically about a third of the way down the right hand side. It was painted in oil and seems like a study. It's unsigned.
A week later we found the opportunity to return to the thrift store and the painting was still there. It was intriguing. There are hints of feathers floating in the darkness and drops of water like they're at a bath, though no water is visible. The dark background and the reflective varnish made it hard to see all the details. We debated buying it. Free space in our one-room apartment is at a premium. I was also unsure if it was an original painting or something you could buy at the local chain store but the subject matter seemed too strange for the mass market and though the painting has no impasto it seemed to be hand painted.
The price ($70) was higher than I wanted to pay for something that might be a popular print found in every hot topic and I struck up a conversation with the guy working at counter, asking if he thought it was an actual painting or a print, hoping to get him to admit it was priced too high but he just rubbed his hand over the surface (an action which made me irrationally angry) and told me he thought it was a painting. This effectively shut down my feeble attempts to barter, not with guile but with a complete disinterest in questioning the marked price.
Amanda liked it but was unwilling to spend so much money on a painting we may not have the room to hang. I liked that it was perplexing so I bought it.
It found a nail to hang it on after cramming several other pictures to the side but I didn't like that it was just bare canvas stretched over a frame. We're too poor to have it framed properly so I did what we normally do, I wrote down the measurements of the canvas on a piece of paper and every time we visited another thrift store we looked for cheap artwork or frames we could recycle. The canvas was 90x30 centimeters (35.5x11.75 inches); an unusual aspect ratio. We found one painting at our local shop that was too tall and not wide enough and I got to thinking I could cut the corners and glue them on the other side but it was too radical an idea to gamble on a $40 frame.
Last week I walked by our local thrift shop and noticed a mirror selling for $20 that seemed about the right size. I didn't have a tape measure so I went home and tied some knots into a length of string so I could have something with me that was the right size.
Yesterday we stopped by the thrift store to drop off an old printer and the mirror was still there. I pulled out my string and was astonished to discover it was the perfect size. I bought the mirror and after removing the glass we discovered the canvas fit into the frame so well it didn't even need nails. Furthermore, the nice bevelled glass mirror will fit perfectly in the bathroom next to our other mirror, we just need some brackets to hang it.
So that's my story. I bought a strange painting at a thrift store with a weird canvas size and then miraculously discovered a framed mirror of the same exact size at a different store. But I've teased you long enough, here's some pictures of the painting.
I don't know if I want to know if we went to all this trouble for a mass market item. It's so much better as a mystery.
Do you know where your data is?
It's a simple question. I was thinking about the ephemeral nature of my tablet hardware, specifically how storing all my data on an sd card might not be rational considering the battery is likely to die before the on-board memory fails. One benefit of keeping my data separate from the rest of the OS is I know where my files are.
The last 20 years of computing has been pushing people away from the concept of files. Browsers automatically download files to a pre-configured folder and give you a link to open the thing when it's done. This is convenient but not when you want to go back and find that thing you downloaded last week. People who don't know where their files are depend on the open dialog of their word processor to remember. This information is stored in metadata. People don't normally consider metadata that important but it's critical if you don't understand where your files are. Metadata is fragile, and is often lost during an update.
The apple finder was written as a response to this trend. Save your data wherever and the finder will scan your entire system and put all your file locations into a database for easy discovery later. I really dislike this solution. Putting all your files into a database in a standard format is just asking to be hacked or mined by marketers.
Now microsoft is pushing people to save to 'the cloud' - by which they mean you should save your personal files on their computers. In theory this allows you to access your files on any computer with an internet connection but this assumes you can get an internet connection and if you haven't noticed, internet access in the US is a dumpster fire. It also makes the marketers job easier when you put your files in their lap. I stay far, far away from these solutions.
Many people just download everything to the desktop and try to use spatial memory to keep track of things; my docs are up here, my pictures are down here. Of course it's a disaster when you have anything more than 50 files and it's another way of depending on invisible metadata (where to display the file icon on the desktop) which can be lost so easily.
I don't even want to start about file management on smart phones.
This leads me to my inevitable follow up question. Do you backup your data? In response, most people look ashamed and start casting about for that thumbdrive they threw into a drawer with the 'copy of copy of very import word document.doc'. Keep all your data in a single location and it's trivial to back up.
All digital media will fail. If you aren't backing things up on a regular schedule you will lose it. Knowing where your files are is the first step to keeping them.
The new gemini drama
There is a lot of content on gemini these days but it's still an order of magnitude less than the standard web. Without the threat of advertisements and tracking, visiting gemini space is relaxing and I like to go there on the weekends, ideally sitting at home on a quiet Sunday morning.
This weekend I loaded up my lagrange browser and navigated to a gemini feed portal to discover the author of lagrange proposing to extend the protocol to allow markdown. This news was followed by despair and outrage.
Gemini links:
- gemini://skyjake.fi/gemlog/2021-10_mark-it-down.gmi
- 2021-10-14 Datapulp : Re: Mark It Down
- 2021-10-14 gerikson: Re: Mark It Down
- 2021-10-14 Idiomdrottning: Re: Mark It Down
- 2021-10-15 Alex Schroeder: 2021-10-15 Re: Mark It Down
- 2021-10-15 hari: Re: Mark it down
- 2021-10-16 Teiresias: A Bit about my Gemini Stack
- 2021-10-16 Idiomdrottning: Gemini Ain't Broke
Though I suspect the protocol will go nowhere without inline images I'm pretty happy with how it works today and I hope they don't try to extend it with other markup features. I'm fully behind making a new protocol (apollo?) with more markup primitives but keep it separate from gemini.
There are weirdos still on gopher. Whenever I go there I can expect to encounter a certain attitude or philosophy that's almost unique to that protocol. Similarly I've come to expect the gemini culture. Mixing new markup into gemini is like letting the clowns rampage through my meditative Sunday morning.
The Iguanadon
Oh, hello! Who's my favorite dinosaur? The iguanadon of course. Just look at this boy.
But why does he have those burly arms and weird prehensile thumbs?
For choking a bitch.
Right on. The iguanadon is objectively the best dinosaur.
Space X
This is a frame captured from the video coming out of Boca Chica. If you haven't seen these videos you should at least watch one - the progress they're making is incredible.
I know the CEO is a psychopath with an immoral amount of money but this is still so cool.
The infrequently updated blog.