Tuesday: Halloween

Which doesn't mean anything to me.

Thirteen years ago, I was driving across Nebraska.

Nebraska is not fun to drive across.

• Whatever.  It's still my preferred fast solution language.
• The best Halloween story.

Monday: And that was when I realized that I'd left my wallet at home today.

Unfortunately, it was while ordering two slices of crappy pizza from the slightly less crappy pizza place by work for lunch.  I did a quick search to make sure it hadn't just fallen out of my pocket, but after not finding it, went back home, opened the door to see it sitting happily on my couch, went back to work, and ordered different two slices of crappy pizza, because they'd sold the last meatball one to the lady right in front of me.

So it's been that kind of day today.  At least it's Indictment Day, so that's good.  Another actor turned Milkshake Duck, but at least people are starting to name these people.

Supergirl was better this week, mostly because she just got to be awesome, and her enemy was "Cult who worships Supergirl."  She defeated them with the power of "you're a terrorist who is trying to kill a bunch of people, also you brought kryptonite, which is literally my only kryptonite.  IT'S THE THING THAT DEFINED THE WORD!  DUMMY!"  Alex and the cultist had to push the bomb into an explosion hole to save the day.  Then he went to jail.

I've been reading Yotsuba& again.

• This article is a mess.  Unreasonable faculty shouldn't be accepted as "just how it is," and pointing out that only 2/50 faculty members are women and that that means they have to be unreasonable ignores the obvious alternate solution.  The counter letter is far better.
• Conservatives are dumb, and honestly believe stupid Nazi propaganda because of that.  There are more and better points, but it's a long read.
• Also: just regular dumb, as shown here.
• This sucks.  I've been reading them since they were part of Gawker, which wikipedia tells me stopped being true in 2008, so almost a decade, and now I feel old.  At least there will be a new RSS feed, so it probably won't be a noticable change for me.
• This is cute.  Almost unreasonably so.

Sunday: I spent all afternoon trying to decide what to get for lunch.

Until it was sufficiently late that the places that only open for dinner at 4 were open.

Including the middle eastern place that I could walk to.

Twitter didn't send the tweet I made with that, so you have to imagine the hearts, the cow, and the flower stickers.  Also, I'm pretty sure I'm not a fan of their hummus or house salad dressing.

And then I came back and watched more stuff on youtube.

• If this is true, then that explains the identity of some of the Sea Peoples.
• "So making something 'American' just means cramming a bunch of cheese in it?  Yeah, ok, that's fair."
• The Beatles.

Saturday: It was rainy today.

See?

And I drove to Kailua to buy a new fan, because my old fan keeps wobbling and being squeaky, and the "adjust speed" button doesn't work reliably.  So I bought the exact same model again, and now if I really need all the fans, I can use the new remote to turn both of them on.

• A good Pokemon episode.
• Now I want a doughnut.
• I am 99% sure that Doom is doing this just to be a jerk.  "WHY IS YOUR CHILD NOT AT HOME, RICHARDS?  ARE YOU JUST A BAD PARENT?  DOOM KNOWS MANY BEDTIME STORIES!"

Friday: At least it's Friday.

Also: that trash truck from yesterday leaks oil all over the floor.  Good job, trash truck.

Lunch was eventful.  I decided to get a Safeway sandwich, because that's generally easy, and I could pick up more stuff for my work fridge.  As I'm walking through the pop aisle, I see this:

"What are you doing in the grocery store, tiny lizard?"

That's when I saw people behind me, laughing.  Whatever, jerks.  You go be the kind of person who doesn't talk to small animals and enjoy your boring world.

Then I went to the sandwich counter, and was told:

1. They can't make the special chicken/gouda/bbq sandwich, because they didn't have any chicken.  Ok, that's a lie, because I can see the chicken, but whatever, ham and swiss on 8-grain.
2. We don't have swiss.  Havarti then, because sure, why not.
3. Also we don't have 8-grain.  Wheat?
4. We don't have any wheat bread at all.  How about this hoagie roll?

And that's when I literally said, "fuck it," grabbed my grocery bag from the basket, leaving the basket on the floor with the two things I was also planning on buying, and left.  I got an unsatisfying bacon/cheese/maple syrup crepe from the crepe place.  I don't know what the deal is, but the crepe place just opened, and "unsatisfying" seems to be their main attribute.  It never has a pleasant eating temperature, and they always are soggy.  I thought this one, with no veggies (which I assumed was the problem with my previous ones) would be better, but it wasn't.

Agents of Inhumanity was awful again.  So much so that I ignored most of it.  Here's what I don't understand: the team got back together, because Spark Girl made lightning from Puu Ualakaa at night (Tweet: Watching TV shows filmed where I live is weird. "Wait, they can't be there. That closes at sunset."), and so they were able to get her and Lockjaw.  But instead of bringing everybody, they sent half the team to go fight the bad guys on Earth.  Why?  Just go home, kill Maximus, and then call down like, "oh, hey, Maximus is dead, and you're stuck on Earth.  Would you like to surrender, or should I just call the Earth cops on you?"  Instead, they waste a bunch of time with nonsense "what do the people want" talk.  The people probably don't want Maximus, since he's such an asshole, so maybe get the power again, and then set up democracy or whatever.  He's a tyrant, you're a tyrant, but you're also nominally the good guy.  Plus, he's trying to kill you, so you know.

And they killed Gorgon, but no one cares, because no one cares about any of the characters that is not a CGI teleporting dog.  

• This person is a monster.
• I think the answer to this question is annoyingly obvious.
• Phil gets a little bit click-baity here, but I don't feel like looking up another article on A/2017 U1.
• So the answer to my random question seems to be no, dogs don't really recognize cartoon dogs.
• Mark Hamill as everybody.
• I think Gabby is teaming up with Kate at some point, so this quick introduction was good to see that she's wonderful as well.

Thursday: Just when I thought everything was working

It isn't, so I spent like two hours today manually checking a bunch of stuff.  I think the first thing just needs some configuration changes.  The second thing looks like a scale issue, but it's not totally clear.  Ugh.

And then I got home and saw this shit.

This ugly ass truck doesn't fit in the parking space.  It's too wide, and it's too long, because no one actually needs to have a damn customized block of stupid.  I've watched the asshole who owns it park before, and he had to have his gf get out (because since he's backing in like an idiot, there's no space for her door to open), before inching it back and forth while I was waiting to get past his stupid ass.  Yesterday, he had it parked with the wheels on the yellow line separating it from his neighbor.  Today he apparently decided that he could just let his stupid-bus stick into the driveway by three feet.  If the stickers are true, this dumbass is a cop, too.

• Great.  Now we have racist kids.
• Nutella.
• Generally it's bad to make fun of how someone looks, but this is Mamoru, and that outfit is awful.

Wednesday: The code is ugly, but the stupid thing works.

Spooky.

Six years ago, we got kolaches.  And now I'm hungry.

• This was today's J-drama murder show.  When I looked it up, I was a bit surprised that they have seven episodes.  I would think having three murders on one bus tour would be bad for business.  Having this happen seven times would be super suspicious.  It was a good show though, and Sayaka totally solves the murder mystery without the cops.
• So that's fun.
• "What happens when you leave your precocious 16 year old home alone with the fully-gassed army, his boyfriend, and an overly permissive babysitter named Aristotle."

Tuesday: I think I'm getting a cough.

Which I hope doesn't mean I'm getting sick.  That would suck.

Seven years ago, I was on a boat.

• I had never heard of gynandromorphs until last night, so I googled it, and it was interesting.  And yes, it was the cardinal that I originally saw that made me look it up.
• So this is now the best webcomic ever.  They don't all have squirrels, though.
• I never knew Monica's origin story.
• All of this.  Kate is one of my favorite characters.

Monday: It's like madness designed this thing.

There are two main classes in the script, and they do similar things.  They both encode the model as a series of polynomials.  The first one uses a dict of arrays, and packs the two polynomials is uses as [a0, a1, a2, b0, b1, b2].  Fine.  The second one packs the two polynomials into a dict of array arrays, such that there is [ [a7, a6, a5, a4, a3, a2, a1, a0], [b7, b6, b5, b4, b3, b2, b1, b0] ].  First up, I'm pretty sure that you could constrain this model with a far lower order curve.  Second, why use such different formats?  Third, the second model uses millimeters for the first polynomial, and micrometers for the second.  Why be so difficult?

It was also super rainy this evening, and this is the sky lit up by a lightning bolt out of frame.

• This was a good episode of Supergirl, and I liked Supergirl driving in to the white martian base in a car while doing the Bugs Bunny thing.
• This is kind of a cool thing, and I might steal this implementation (without the shiny interface, because I don't need that).  The syuzhet library it uses for sentiment analysis looks interesting.
• I had the exact same thought watching the first new Star Wars movie.  These are big complicated machines, and even though they're designed for "wars around stars", all the things they have are important parts of those machines.  You can't just have something not work.  If you don't need that thing to work, then it probably isn't going to be in the design.

Sunday: A lazy day.

I didn't know what I wanted for lunch, so I did the "take the google suggestion that my phone has popped up."  So La Tour Cafe.

Angry chicken sandwich.

It's a special item now.  "HOT N’ SPICY CRISPY CHICKEN BREAST, PHO AND JALAPENO MAYO, HONEY, CRUNCHY ASIAN SLAW, ROASTED ALMONDS, FRIED SHALLOTS, TOASTED BRIOCHE BUN".  It was delicious and weird.  The mayo made it taste like pho.  The flavors blended in a way that I wasn't expecting.  I almost got the J-town burger ("WAGYU BEEF, EGGPLANT SHISHITO PEPPER DENGAKU RELISH, KABOCHA CREAM CHEESE SMEAR, ARUGULA, OKINAWAN SWEET POTATO STRINGS, BRIOCHE BUN"), but I had a burger yesterday.

Then I battled a gym because it was weak.

Is this screen new?  I don't fight gyms very often, since it's not fun when everyone is strong.

In any case, I put my Angry Fish in.

Only to be knocked out by the time I was finished getting groceries.  Yep.  Gyms are super fun now.  Great how they made it such a fun time.

• Neil Gaiman is good with words.
• One of the greatest scenes in comic history.
• I love seeing that one panel, because it tells me I'm about to see something super awesome.
• Pikachu and Mimikyu.

Saturday: I drove a lot.

Mostly because I wanted to get lunch, and it was far away.

I just woke up and felt like cajun fries.

Then I kept driving when I was coming back, because I didn't want to stop listening to the music.

And kept driving until I got to Kaneohe.

And then kept driving until I was in Kailua.  Which doesn't sound far, but I took the long way of "back to town, then around the east side" route.

I justified it by taking a walk when I got back, partially so I could listen to a different album.  I saw 22 lizards while walking, because 6:00 is when all the lizards go out to warm up on the sidewalk.

• Seeing this just confirmed that Five Guys was the way to go today.
• Owls, and not just because I closed all my tabs and this was one of the only ones left.
• Cat and dog, but totally for that same reason.

Friday: It's Halloween time.

Because Pokemon Go said so.

 While I was waiting for lunch, I discovered that I'd Go+ed a Shuppet.

Cool.

 Then, when I was leaving work, I sat in my car to catch a Duskull.

Slightly less cool.

But it meant that I got a medal.

 And, after Go+ing more stuff on the way home:

Finally.

I've been planning on doing a bunch of new Pokemon evolutions this weekend, but I guess it's less important now.  That also meant I could buy the sweater.

I can't believe that my trainer blinked while I was taking the screenshot.  SIgh.

 It doesn't quite match as much as I would have hoped.  Oh well.

I guess this becomes the backup style.

The Inhumans was dumb and annoying again today.  Although this happened:

TV show: "guy deflects bullet".
Me: Isn't that just going to hit his girlfriend standing next to him?
TV show: "bullet hits girlfriend"
Me: LOLOLOLOLOLOL. 

It's just so pointless and dumb.

• Saga is really good.  Izabel's lullaby is wonderful.  Spoilers.
• Yeah.  I'm kind of surprised this doesn't happen more often.
• Thor does not have a healthy relationship with Loki.  Yes, Loki is basically invulnerable, and tried to take over the Earth, and Asgard, and deposed Odin, and is generally a bad person.  Thor is still kind of a bully.
• Neo dadaism.

Thursday: Today I discovered why everything was off by something like 15%.

I had a typo in the scale factor that made it like 15% wrong.

Nine years ago I went to an apple butter festival.  This is likely similar to what I would have posted to Twitter, if they'd had stickers nine years ago.  And photos.

If I recall correctly, they were out of apple butter when I got there.  I mean, that's only the entire point, but whatever.

Also a tree fell.

• This is why I don't get people complaining about Twitter so much (on Twitter).  I don't recall any other company being as open about what they're trying to do.
• He was a garbage president, but he was still better than the current one.
• Good.
• This was unexpected to read.  Traci Thirteen is an underused character.

Wednesday: Half the data is on the wrong partition. Ugh.

I didn't catch any Pokemon today, so I turned on a incense when I got home.  Also my character model disappeared.

• I should read more of these.
• I wonder if this will be available from amazon, or if I'll have to go to the actual Lego store.
• Not all Republicans are dishonest hatefilled monsters.  Some of them are just senile.
• Lindy West is always great.
• First, I still thing the Fantastic Four is better cancelled.  Second, if DC's going to make a knock off, they chose a pretty good team.  Mr. Terrific is woefully underused.
• Chronological timelines are the best timelines, that's why they're timelines.  I get that this is an attempt to increase user use time, but like Twitter, I think Tumblr is kind of a thing that you either never use, or use constantly all the time.
• I would join Team Rocket in a heartbeat.  Where do I sign up?
• Me: "I mean, it's not like they're trying to destroy the land, or the ocean, or trying to restart the entire universe."
• Also Me: "Well, they did genetically engineer a superpowered evil mosnter who planned on killing everyone."
• Me: "Ok, fine, they messed up ONCE.  Mewtwo forgave everybody and flew away, so it's all ok."

Tuesday: Why did I choose such a crazy size?

Thirteen years ago, I was in Toronto.

Six years ago, I made the decision that the output plot page size was going to be 9.72" x 13.89".  It's almost B4, but not quite.  Today I switched it to "US letter", because that's less insane.

• Medical costs.
• Sailor Usagi.
• Kate Bishop, Hawkeye.
• Similar story:  last time I ran a D&D campaign, I straight up stole puzzles from episodes of Cyberchase.  The campaign I ran for graduate students.  I will not forget the one puzzle that they spent close to an hour figuring out.
• Maybe this is why I like ghost Pokemon.

Monday: Today was not a great day.

A decade ago, there was a bunny on my porch.

• I am on two papers associated with this event, so I guess that's something.
• Carrie Fisher.
• I do not like this season of Supergirl.  At least they changed this character's costume to not be so ridiculous.

Sunday: Ugh.

I woke up, knew I had to finish this talk, and then sat on my couch doing nothing for like two hours.  Yay productivity.

Then I decide I kind of wanted the chicken sandwich from the burger place.

I eventually gave up trying to eat it as a sandwich, and just cut it up instead.  It was unreasonably tall.

Then I came home, finished the talk, and felt bad that this is like the third week in a row I've skipped taking a walk.  It's been rainy this weekend, though.

• I looked it up, and I was correct here.  They cancelled that Adam Pally show after one season.
• Tag and Bink?  I was not expecting that.
• A good Spider-Man comic.
• Parental lies.

Saturday: Procrastinating.

Specifically, in finishing my talk for Monday.  In any case, the plan for the day was to see a movie.  Specifically the one at 2pm.  So I got up at 12:30, and still was too late.

As shown by the intact ticket and ebi fry.

"Why do they have a 2pm and a 3pm showing?  This movie isn't going to be that popular."  Nope, it isn't.  But the 3pm showing has open captions, for people with hearing problems.  Whatever, I do subtitled movies all the time, this is the same thing, but I can read faster than they can talk.

Anyway, Professor Marston and His Wonder Women.  About William Moulton Marston (who invented Wonder Woman), his wife, and the student that came to live with them and had two of his children.  I hadn't heard much about this, other than its existence, so I went in with no expectations.  It's...complicated.  On the good side, it presents all three of them as progressive and modern, and just wanting to live their lives the way they wanted, without problems.  And also invent a major comic book character to pay the bills.  That's fine, but within the first 15-30 minutes, there's a scene where Elizabeth (the wife) and William agree that they should open the relationship to include Olive (the student).  But that's not how it happens in Jill Lapore's book, where William basically says, "this is happening now.  Get ok with it or leave," to Elizabeth.  

When I got home, I did a quick google search, and it turns out Marston's granddaughter isn't super happy with the movie, because they basically made up a lot of the story.  It's not a terrible story that they made up, but you can't really do that about real people.  Like this review says, they really should have mentioned the stuff-making-up part.

And there were only like 12 people in the theater, with an average age of like 70.

Afterwards, I wasn't quite hungry, and I didn't really have a plan, so I ended up driving the long way to Kailua.

And got tacos.

Then I came home, took out the trash, and vacuumed.  Really wasn't into working on this talk.  I at least have the figures sorted out.

• Olive Byrne has a wikipedia page now.
• Grape the Penguin died.
• Everyone's sad.
• Lies about taxes.
• Expressions in art.
• I was glad to see that this picture has a non-"bunny was eaten" explanation.

Friday: The 13th.

Twelve years ago, I had one final rose on my bush. 

Inhumans continues to be bad.  This episode was basically filler, which is dumb since there are only going to be eight episodes.  The most important note from this week:

• "My sister's teleporting dog." is the best line.  Also: best character.  Also: I love Lockjaw.

It's true.  Everything else about this show is bad.  All the Inhumans got human friends, which is dumb, and when they finally had a fight, Black Bolt just blew up a propane tank instead of unmaking his enemies with his voice.  This is a coup, BB.  I mean:

These are bad guys.

• So lawsuits then.
• I really like the Amy Sherald ones.
• Epipen.

Thursday: I'd be happy when this week is over, since it's been kind of garbage, but I have to give a talk next week.

So.

So here are some individual panels that explain why I've been binging the Ms. Marvel trades on my tablet:

Kamala and Lockjaw.

Kamala after the science fair.

Zoe and Nakia.

This is seriously one of the best series I've read.

• Absolute garbage.  I assume this will be immediately locked up in court, but the stunning meanness of this is indescribable.  Some of the quick reviews I saw indicate that this will cost the government more money anyway.  He kills people, makes others poorer, and it costs more money to do it.
• Yes.
• I saw this on tumblr, and immediately assumed you could only get them on etsy.
• Symphony of the Night + roomba.

Wednesday: Ugh.

No gems, but I thought this was interesting.

• That's great.
• Facebook is awful.
• Cool.  I became a better driver by playing Gran Turismo, as it's easier to understand when it doesn't matter if you drive into a wall at 900mph.

Tuesday: The news is saying people are complaining that the recent repaving didn't repave the whole road.

But this ignores the fact that Manoa road was nearly unusable before now.  The giant holes everywhere, the mountain down by the five-way-intersection-that-is-an-abomination-before-the-eyes-of-god that was impossible to pass faster than ten mph, the constant uneven road with random gauges.  All fixed.  Who cares if they didn't repave the part of the street people park on.  I enjoy driving on roads that aren't actively trying to destroy my car.

Also: shout out to the guy who decided "no lines means I drive in middle of the street."  You're an idiot, and you're going to kill someone.

I realized yesterday that I have something like 13 new-Pokemon evolutions I can do, which works out to 26k xp.  However, I need to make a list, and I need to make a list of "almost" things, because I remembered today that rare candy exist, and that I could probably bump those close ones.

• They are again trying to kill Pell Grants, which are part of why I am nearly done paying student loans.
• "Think about it. I mean, everybody but the current employees voted for us up and down the line."  Think about it.  I mean, there's a point where you have to realize you sound like a villain.
• I missed Brooklyn 99 to watch Legends of Tomorrow.  "Sometimes we screw things up for the better."  That really should be their official slogan.  Tonight's episode involved Rip Hunter being a jerk (again/still) and Julius Caesar taking over the world because after being mind wiped and having a selfie taken, he stole a history book about Rome out of one of the heroes hands.  Like, there was literally no other way it could have happened.  He had to have taken the book, Steel would have to have let go of the book he was holding in his hands, and then forget that he was no longer holding a book.  I love shows that just don't care how silly they get.  Oh, also Flash was on, and it was gloomy and everyone was a butt, and I guess Barry died/well, actually he died is simpler last season and had to be brought back, and new Barry is going to be less of a butt?

Monday: I think I sorted out a problem.

And I discovered that the chromatic aberration in my glasses is sufficient that this plot looks 3D when I'm not looking directly at it.

Supergirl was new today, and I had the same problem I've had before: when Supergirl isn't fun, the show is crappy.  Mon-El is gone, but he's still a drain on the story.  There was a good line at the end.  "You can't cry, because if you cry, I'll cry, and then everyone will know that we can cry."

• A good take on Columbus.  Also: I didn't know Sinatra's mother was cool.  Also 2: I am a big fan of the idea of statues of pizza.
• "Don't".
• A good comic about a giantess.

Sunday: I spent like two hours not deciding on a place for lunch.

Pizza won out.

• I wonder how many people will effectively switch parties.  McCain I think is doing it because he's going to die, so there won't really be consequences.  Corker is just fed up, I suspect.
• This is still stupid.
• Squirrel.

Saturday: And then I remembered I bought two volumes of Ms. Marvel, and hadn't read them.

Ok, I did that last night after posting that picture, and to be fair, I bought them on my tablet, so that's why I hadn't read them.  I'm probably going to buy the other five volumes tomorrow, because it's a good series.  Like, I know everyone said it was good, and all the things I saw were good, but it's even better than that.

I also didn't know what I wanted for lunch, but I knew I wanted to drive.  These should have stickers, but Twitter seems slightly broken on my phone.  It wouldn't tweet anything, and doesn't load images correctly.

I always get soup, and I always burn my tongue, and I should really learn my lesson.

They had an "infinite shrimp" option.  So I ate a bunch of shrimp and the meager amount of asparagus they gave me, and took the steak and M&C home for dinner.

I was going to do a walk today, but it was rainy.  Maybe tomorrow?

• Squirrel Girl.
• Totodile.

Friday: This show is really bad.

They spent forever doing stupid boring shit, and then at the end, they bring back the only good thing on the show, Lockjaw, and then have him get hit by an ATV.  As I put in my notes for the show "fuck the asshole who wrote lockjaw getting hit by an atv into the script."  Why would you do that?

Here's a picture of Lockjaw and Ms. Marvel, because I didn't take any pictures today.

• Huh.  Great way to make sure your dying business dies faster.  Guess I'll just not feel bad buying comics from Amazon.
• Like this, which turns out to actually be a thing.  I'm confident an author I like will make a book I like even with characters I don't.
• What kind of monster puts salt on an apple?
• "The Sound Of Silence, But The Instruments Are The Vocals And The Vocals Are The Instruments".

Thursday: I had a great title, but I forgot what it was.

I woke up today, checked my phone, and discovered that it was using 4G instead of wifi.  "Crap, did my computer crash again?"  Yes.  It had.  But not only that, it'd shut down completely, making me suspect maybe it was a power outage.  So I pushed the button.  Nothing.  Push the button again.  Nothing.  Slam press the button a bunch of times.  Nothing.

Crap.  I immediately started triaging: the old laptop still works, it just has a broken bezel, I could use that as a temporary replacement.  I would have to get things configured correctly, but that wouldn't be too difficult.  The biggest challenge would be getting data off the disks.

I took a shower, planned out what I would need to do, thought about how much of a replacement computer to get, and how quickly I could get it delivered.  As I was getting dressed, I had a thought.  This case is nearly 20 years old.  The button is a crappy plastic thing that gets jammed in the housing pretty regularly.  Maybe the issue was that the button wasn't working?  A quick google search later showed me the pinouts for my motherboard, and a switch swapped the power switch with the reset button.  Tap.  Boot.  So it's all ok, I guess.  For now.

The best I could do was an anniversary Pokemon.

Also the news was trash today.

• Racists are terrible.  I do hope that all the "liberal journalists" in these emails lose their jobs.  Don't pretend to be cool and then do shitty things secretly.
• Same thing with this asshole.
• I'm not that great at economics, but this makes sense.
• I look forward to watching youtube let's plays of this game that involve cat petting.
• A round bird.
• I saw stuff that made me think that Kelly Thompson might be going to write a Rogue/Gambit comic.  I hate Gambit, and am at best indifferent to Rogue.  Writing like this is why if it does happen, I will probably get it.

Wednesday: Doctor day.

It turns out I'm generally healthy.  Also that I can't get updates for some vaccines because it's not allowed with the medicine I take.  So that's fun.

I decided to just go home afterwards instead of driving back to work, since I can do things anywhere there's internet.

Except not when this asshole helicopter decides that it's just going to sit in the sky for a half hour.

Just sitting there, being a jerk, making all the noise.

Apparently it's some sort of traffic survey?  Wouldn't this be the kind of situation where a drone would make far more sense than sending up a helicopter?

I was able to get some emails answered, and since it didn't take much time to transfer images:

Some cool spiral galaxies.  Getting good color images is still tricky.

• Let's assume this summary is accurate (I'm too lazy to actually read court transcripts).  Hopefully this means we'll have real redistricting reform soon.
• The number of people in this article that should be in jail is astonishing.  "Doing things the right way is hard, so we send people to be slaves so 'Christians' can profit off them."
• I used to read this comic, and was so surprised when I learned that the Ian that drew it grew up to still be Ian Jones-Quartey.
• Part 1.  Part 2.

Tuesday: Tuesday's aren't great, to be honest.

I didn't have an image, and I really wanted something to smile about, given how shitty today's links are.  I have confidence in you, Usagi.

• Everyone involved in this should be ashamed.  And fired.  And barred from ever working for the government, ever.
• This is stupid.  This is so stupid, I hate everyone involved.
• Good news! (Note: news is not actually good.)
• Ramona.  This is a good link.
• A Halloween bunny.

Monday: I don't like Mondays.

Gyarados came back.

I had the thought that I should do what I did last year, and do more tldr lovecraft/hpl-oween.  The problem is that I haven't chosen any stories, and this is easier when I've done that, made the convenient data file for the perl script that generates the html, and don't actually have to do day-to-day work.  So I'll probably back-date a bunch of posts next weekend.

• I was confused by figure 15, as the sudden change from one distribution to another didn't make sense.  Until I saw that that corresponds to 2009, and remembered that people are racist.
• Can I claim this as the reason I hate mornings?  I'm sure there will be tests at some point.
• An interesting algorithm for variable stars/variability in general.
• A cat dressed like Sailor Moon.