Lichenyote

Company of Others...cancelled or something?

2008-07-21T02:55:44Z

2x edit. Well, who knows what's going on. Looks like Company of Others got cancelled due in part to limited attendance. There might still be something going on at Lewis & Clark, and I still hope to do Stuff with People on that weekend--but whether it's a long trip down there will depend on how many other folks are still in for it. I'd still like to do camping, and I've got the time off, anyway.

More posts when I get more info. I'll try not to edit this one anymore.

They DO have poison pincers..!

2008-07-15T20:26:38Z

I always knew caterpillars were evil. They're too cute not to be.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,382451,00.html

Thank god that's just in Peru.

Misfile

2008-07-11T22:34:32Z

Webcomics eat my brain.

http://www.misfile.com/?page=1 first strip

I caught up like a thousand pages in three days or so, and now I feel compelled to modify my car. :x But still. Misfile probably appeals to anyone who likes El Goonish Shive (though it's a tiny bit more serious). Or cars, though it's surprisingly readable to the car-apathetic. Also a pretty unique take on FTM transgender, without taking it either too lightly or too seriously. Yay.

There's a shortage of professional-quality webcomics out there. This one counts.

sowelu @ 2008-07-03T01:50:00

2008-07-03T08:52:03Z

Thunder and lightning something truly amazing tonight. The sky knows that tomorrow night, there's going to be fireworks... and it's putting on a show of its own, just as a reminder.

Sitting and reading an Orson Scott Card graphic novel while the world outside lights up in bright blues and oranges. I like this.

It's been hot and dry, and for most of the day it was overcast and dusty with the kind of clouds you just don't -get- over here. It seemed for a bit like I was south...or over on the east coast, maybe. I don't remember the last time I saw Seattle with this kind of weather. Ran outside on my break at work and danced in the rain and laughed.

sowelu @ 2008-07-01T03:37:00

2008-07-01T10:44:17Z

Something's missing. Thought a nice quiet weekend alone would help, and working out in the heat has been great for me, but I'm not getting anywhere.

Work is dragging lately, and I'm unproductive. I need an escape. I don't have much lack of things to do, there's some coding I've wanted to do and there's always more working out...but spiritual life is lacking and I've lost my sense of being at home anywhere. Two months left, but already this house is no longer home for me.

Beats me. I had to be in bed five hours ago.

My phone is almost always on. Give me an SMS or a call sometime! I'm craving contact. Feels like I don't get enough these days. Well, sleep now.

Cheap whiteboard!

2008-06-21T03:33:22Z

I'm going to get some cheap whiteboard material in the next day and a half (coincidentally, right before D&D). Looking for quick advice if anyone has gone whiteboard-hunting before!

Here's a nice useful discussion on the subject I found: http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Shower_Board_as_a_white_Board

Right now it looks like I'll be snagging some shower board, and any of various cleaners.

Bonus to cheap whiteboard: I'm going to see if I can't make some permanent grid-lines on (half of) it. And maybe someday I'll try a metal backing so I can get a handful of colored magnets for the player characters.

Tabletop? Wallside.

Fractalicious

2008-06-16T23:02:07Z

I dunno how many fractal or graphics geeks read my journal, but I'm looking for some specific ideas that maybe someone could help me out with (or be fascinated by the very concept of).

Fractals. The Mandelbrot set is 2-dimensional. (Wikipedia will tell you about Hausdorff–Besicovitch dimensions and I don't care about them. When you look at it, it has an X and a Y axis but no Z axis, and that's what I'm referring to here.) I want to find a 3-dimensional one. I could rotate Mandelbrot around its X-axis and get something pretty, but I was hoping for something with tubes that snake around--not vast arcing swaths cut out of space. And I can't just easily port Mandelbrot to three dimensions unless someone makes some really fascinating changes to math sometime very soon, because it's an iterative algorithm that puts the X and Y coordinates in the real and complex part of a number. There's nowhere for Z to go, and it would REALLY not look good if Z replaced the power of 2 in that equation. I think.

So, I need a nice 3-dimensional, or at least natively 3-variable fractal.

Even more demanding: It'd be nice to have an escape-time fractal instead of an iterating fractal. Yes, yes, Sierpinski is very nice, but iterating fractals really don't work for the specific application I have in mind. Specifically I want an escape-time fractal because you can calculate the value of any point to arbitrary depth in a vacuum. You don't need to calculate the rest of the fractal to do it, like you do for Sierpinski. Mandelbrot is an escape-time one, and it's pretty nice.

I'm -considering- doing this with Julia sets... except that Julia is FOUR-dimensional. Each Julia set is a 2D picture, and you define a Julia set out of two more variables. I could always set one dimension constant, or I could try doing something really bizarre with time travel, I guess. Holding one variable constant is an effective, if unbeautiful, solution. At least it allows for multiple maps to explore.

... Voxels. A voxel is a volume-pixel, for the uninitiated. An MRI is a collection of many slices of pictures of your brain, so each picture has X and Y, and the location of that picture in the stack of pictures is Z. Voxels are a different way to do 3d rendering...you just divide space into a bunch of cubes, instead of using polygons. You shoot a ray of light into the scene, and look at which cube(s) it hits, in order to determine the color of the pixel to draw on the screen. Very very good for simplistic, non-reflective raytracing.

Are these two things coming together yet? I want to render a fractal in voxels. I want to render it in variable depth, so when you get close to a wall, it scrapes more detail out of it--but far away, it doesn't bother to calculate things yet. I know this part is very do-able. Maybe even 'easy'.

The hard part is making it interesting to LOOK at! See, the problem with escape-time fractals is that they define a monochrome set--either a pixel/voxel 'escapes' after a bunch of iterations, or it doesn't. That means all the walls are just one color. In order to make it interesting, I want to do something with the SLOPE of the volume, and have reflections. I might be able to puzzle out my own way to calculate the slope of a surface at a given voxel, but I'd really like it if anyone reading this has any experience with that (or knows someone who does / can point me at a paper on the subject).

Besides that, pixels are colored based on how far away from the camera they are, like it was in a foggy place. It'll take work to make this good.

Yeah this is a pet project I thought a lot about over the weekend. My last 3d fractal renderer (it's OLD) just made a height-map out of Mandelbrot with some interpolation, and rendered it with polygons...that was a disaster for a LOT of reasons. Time for a different approach. And for those of you who are boggling at all this, um...sorry?

:D

2008-06-10T22:29:37Z

Evolution is awesome. Show this article to your favorite denier. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html

Also, as a follow-up to last post. I'm thinking of running some D&D at my house in Woodinville! It wouldn't be for long, as I've only got a few months before leaving to Portland...but if anyone's willing to come to Woodinville for gaming with me and Karla, let me know.

(And for you portlanders, there will -absolutely- be some gaming once I'm down there, too.)

D&D 4th Edition: A positive review

2008-06-09T23:32:20Z

I've read through the three new D&D core books. As someone who's owned some of every D&D generation from the original, first three tan books...even if I've only played in a few campaigns... I am content with 4th Ed.

Disclaimer: I haven't played the new system yet, just read through all the new books.

It's a totally new system in a lot of ways. They took apart the classes and put them back together in a completely new way. They tore up the world and made a new, similar one in its place. And yet the new system is more true to early roots than, uh...well it's way more true than 3rd ed., and maybe more true than AD&D 2nd. Since I originally fell in love with the FIRST edition, I think that's great.

D&D 4th Ed. is a wargame, with support for a fairly simple skill system and streamlined noncombat stuff. Just like 1st Ed. was based on the Chainmail wargaming rules, 4th ed is heavily tactically based, and is totally designed to take place on a grid. But old gamers should remember that a level 3 fighter used to "fight as 4 men" and a level 12 cleric used to "fight as a superhero + 1" so...well, those are its roots.

Important things...Wizards and such no longer run out of spells. You can cast magic missile all day long...but you only get your BIG spells once per encounter, or once per day. This also applies to other classes, so fighters can run out of their awesome abilities too.

Noncombat spells like "Knock" are no longer counted along with a wizard's other abilities, taking up space. Instead, noncombat stuff goes into "ritual magic". All ritual magic has a monetary cost in components to perform. While a wizard can do them most easily, anyone can read ritual scrolls. And rituals do not need to be "prepared" ahead of time, just performed on the spot in a 10-minute-plus ritual. So you can now function without a wizard, and non-combat magic is both less convenient AND less irritating.

There are things called "Action Points" and "Healing Surges". You get Action Points as you go through encounters (which feels kind of metagamey, but hey). Essentially they let you take one EXTRA action, only once per encounter, and you get one per day + one every two encounters. Lets anyone take advantage of an opening & be a badass, and I approve, because they don't dominate the game. As for healing surges, they basically represent your character's resiliency when he has time to rest and/or great inspiration: You get like 6-10 a day, and can use them to regenerate some hit points while resting; a leader or healer can also give you the ability to spend a healing surge while in combat. They have a funny name, but basically they represent the heroic ability to be a badass and recover whenever you have a spare breath. Don't run out.

Other D&D versions sometimes tried to make sure that ALL NPCs followed the exact same rules of the heroes; 3rd was the strongest example of this. 4th throws that concept to the wind. NPCs generally don't get action points, and have few if any healing surges. They barely have classes. It even goes so far as to define a "Minion" class of monsters, which have ONE hit point regardless of level. It sounds ridiculously cheesy until you realise it's kind of supposed to be, and your fighter using the new "Cleave" can basically knock off a mook for free every time he hits the boss, your warlock can spend an encounter or daily ability to vaporise that line of wimpy goblins, your ranger gets to kill three guys with one spread of arrows, etc. The game encourages a certain level of metagaming, to the extent that the players should *explicitly* know that those monsters will die in one, so they can be approproately flashy. It seems a little weird for D&D, but it works.

In general the rules are just plain simplified, there's less numbers involved, and less things stack. No more skill points; you are "trained" for +5 or you're not. Every power and ability is given in a well organized block form, so you could have all your abilities written on playing cards in front of you for reference. As much as that makes it look like HeroQuest, I think it'll make the game run a lot faster, so that the battles can be bigger with more complex tactics, and still take less time. Looking back to the first wargaming roots, I think it finally does the job right...and one round will no longer take fifteen minutes once you get into higher levels. Hell it's even back to "constant experience per monster" instead of that weird player-level-variable system 3rd Ed. had.

One last thing that has been mentioned elsewhere...The Dungeon Master's Guide is now way more practical and awesome. It has a lot of focus on how to herd cats, uh, players. Guidelines for keeping different types of players interested and keeping them from dragging down the game. How to deal with players that don't show up. Advice on how to manage time, and how long to expect startup/shutdown/encounters to take. How to introduce new players to the system. Suggestions on working up some material to draw on when you need a quick improv encounter, and how to re-energize the story when it's dragging. It's the sort of important logistical skills that start to come natural after after you've run a lot of campaigns, but for the new GM, it's great. Oh and they finally moved the (good!) magical items lists into the PHB, so the players stop stealing your manual.

I want to play. (or run something...and for people who know how GMing has gone for me lately, that's a huge change.) It's nothing like 3rd Ed., and people who want 3rd Ed. will be disappointed. Instead, it's a wargame with loot and experience points and an emphasis on cinematics and heroics. And I LIKE that.

sowelu @ 2008-05-28T21:27:00

2008-05-29T04:50:18Z

I'm thinking of making or obtaining a coyote mask.

This is just a spur of the moment thing, but it seems like it'd be nice for rituals and for festival-things. I don't know what materials I want to use, but I'm thinking of something that's more symbolic than it is realistic or cartoony. No fur, for one thing, but shaped somewhat. If I end up making one I'm thinking of making it red on white, or red on brown...but I don't know if I trust my artistic abilities enough to distinguish it from a kitsune mask or something. No experience.

Does anyone have links to good mask-making pages? Or people who do masks?

sowelu @ 2008-05-26T22:38:00

2008-05-27T06:01:59Z

Oregon...awesome as usual.

Met a lot more otherkin in the area. And I swear Portland is like living in a sci-fi book that's set ten years in the future. Finally ran into snowcoma, too!

Had to use my super sneaky coyote powers to get into the Portland house after the key broke off in the lock, also.

Memorial Day... I've got a few military and ex-military folks on my friends list. You have good motives and you're some of the strongest people I know. Thank you. Come back in one piece.

sowelu @ 2008-05-23T18:44:00

2008-05-24T01:45:22Z

Once again, I'm scared about moving down to Portland. It's only been recently that I've discovered how many people I really do have up here in the Seattle area...They're my family, really, and they're the people I know best.

I guess if it was an easy decision, it wouldn't really be much of a decision, now would it?

My mind's made up, but it's just harder now. It took the prospect of losing them to discover all the things I have up here. Moving is an unknown.

I can always come back. And...life needs suffering and tests of character, even if it's happy (bittersweet) suffering, and entirely voluntary tests. I still like where I'm going.

...This LJ entry is really just for my own benefit to write. But hey, it is a journal, right? Two posts in one day isn't too many?

That didn't go as planned.

2008-05-23T20:26:18Z

Yay! Up bright and early at 6 AM, so I can go to work early, to the gym, and head down to Oregon--er, why is my housemate screaming in pain?

Five hours later, after a trip to the emergency room, a diagnosis of a pinched nerve or something, a prescription of pain pills and orders not to carry heavy things for a week...and instead of coming in three hours early, I'm now an hour late to work. That sort of thing really messes with your whole day. Poor Karla though, and I'm glad it wasn't anything serious (as if screaming pain wasn't serious).

This has been a week of very frazzled nerves, and not as much work as I'd like...no simple tasks with immediate results, just some months-old long term things. Vacation is perfect.

Portland on my mind

2008-05-18T10:10:41Z

Turned down the fulltime offer. Mental health and personal growth are more important than financial stability, and I'm not doing too badly there anyway. This means I've got a bit over three months to hunt down a tech job near Portland or Beaverton. It's really not a bad situation. I'll have trouble thinking about anything besides the move, though.

I'm so happy that I'll have a place to live once I head down there...That's the one thing that is really making this all possible, or at least, making it possible enough to go through with. (Thank you!)

I've been kind of a ball of stress, but I think I'm back out the other side now.

Downside to having a weird schedule, driving to Portland and all over the place: Didn't hit the gym as much as I've been meaning to. Once or twice a week lately, which just plain is not enough.

Have a couple friends down near Portland that I didn't get to see last time. Worried about one of 'em...You know who you are, sorry I haven't been in better touch.

...I picked up Alan Moore's Watchmen at Powell's last weekend. Lost most of today to it. Wonderful stuff. Also, tabletop Werewolf game tomorrow. I think that means I'd better sleep!

sowelu @ 2008-05-12T21:01:00

2008-05-13T05:37:09Z

Life is pretty awesome.

I think I'm praying that I don't get offered this job, in the end. The job is the only thing tying me down to Washington, and the more I see of Portland, the more I'd rather live there. Still, this would be higher paying than anything I could get down there, I bet...and if offered, I can't really turn it down.

Otherwise, it's about 3-4 months until I'm contractually required to take a break from temping here, and I might as well leave once it's done. Along with a few months to get a job and stuff.

Tough one. I really like the job, and the people I work with--but it's more important to me that I live somewhere that I can grow as a person, even if it means a less stellar job. I can't grow here. Washington is not for me, and it's time to leave the nest. If not now, then in a year or two, perhaps...but the time seems right, now. If I stay, I'll work on saving up money.

I don't expect my prayers to have any effect, here. What will happen will happen. There's a couple of paths here, I'll be stuck with one of them, and they're both at least 'alright'.

And...I love Portland. The energy down there is amazing. The tea garden is very nice. It seems like half the people I know are down there, and more are moving all the time. The transit system blows Seattle's away, but then, everyone already knows that.

...Before last weekend, I didn't really have any experience with non-therian otherkin. Now I do, and it's a community I'd like more contact with.

Here's a ramble. Stream of consciousness alert.

2008-05-10T05:55:33Z

I love who I am.

Life has always been about journey and change. For a long time, I felt like I was waiting for something, and I didn't think I was happy. There have been a vast number of bad decisions I've made in my life. But sitting where I am today, I think it's all been worthwhile.

I got an old hard drive back today, and I looked over my life. It was kind of like life flashing before my eyes: A good look at everything I used to be, and the company I used to keep. I miss the old days; I know they're gone. I don't miss the person I used to be, but that person is gone. And when I add it all up, and look at where I stand today...Even with a lot of the more recent decisions I've made, there's just one answer.

I regret nothing.

I could have been a better person, back then. Better to other people, more in control of my life. Could have done a lot more with school, travelled more... God knows, I could have had different people in my life today. Some of the things I've did and decisions I've made have impacted a lot of the lives around me.

For a long time, I thought that "Regret" was the one defining emotion of my life. It's a word that summed up a lot of things. Why was I such an ass, why didn't I do more for my own life, why did I choose the road I picked? But...that's gone now.

My life has led me where I am today, a free man.

There are people I want to apologize to, and I still will someday, if I can, if they'd listen. But that's not *me*, now. I have my whole life in my hands again, and I think I can start over.

It's strange to think about starting over at the age of twenty-four. My biological clock started up a week ago. I think I bashed the snooze bar pretty hard. Someday, I know for a fact that I need to raise a child, but I also know that now is not the time.

I need to make an inventory of what I know about myself:

- Something canine is a part of me, and I am a traveler. I keep walking. It's what I do.
- I need other people to survive. I might be an introvert, but other people are my raison d'etre. I pour everything I am into the people around me, and I define myself with them.
- I will be working in the computer industry. I've thought about moving out of it, but this is a foundation to build on. In my heart, I like it here. I've discovered very recently that I haven't lost who I am because of it.
- Going to the gym is good for my soul. Working out and improving myself physically makes me a happier person. I *can* get my weight down.
- I really, honestly liked being poly. That kind of openness is something I need, and I cannot operate in anything more constraining until something major changes.
- My standards for finding true love are sky-high, and always will be.
- I need to stay active, outdoors, with people.
- I need to be around otherkin. They're a little crazy. I'm crazy too.

What am I going to do now?.. I don't know. I'm going to keep pouring my heart into living.

o/` Once there was a boy who had the faith to move a mountain
And like a child he would believe without a reason
It's been a long time and I haven't seen him lately, but
I keep searching, for that missing person o/`

I don't think I'm missing anymore.

Right now I'm sharing a house in Redmond with my ex-girlfriend. I don't know where to go from here, yet, but I need to move eventually. I don't think it's time to move yet.

I've gotten back into MUSHing, don't know if I've mentioned it on here yet. GarouMUSH is a good place, and it's full of wonderful people. Also, I'm finally adjusted to and accepted character death.

I'm going to Oregon this weekend, and I'm going to see a few awesome folks.

I don't know the best way to get back in touch with the people I used to hang out with on IRC, but I miss them.

I'm also working on decoding my old ICQ logfiles...They're one of just a few parts of my history I don't have in my hands, yet. I don't think I'll look at them, but they'll be nice to have.

Right now, I... am going to worry about packing my car, find something to eat, and work out. Still under two thousand calories for today.

Yoinked from daikitsune

2008-04-29T04:20:34Z

Comment and I will:
₪ Tell you why I friended you.
₪ Associate you with something - fandom, song, color, photo, word etc.
₪ Tell you something I like about you.
₪ Tell you a memory I have of you.
₪ Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
₪ Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.
₪ In return you must post this in your journal.

Gym!

2008-04-15T05:17:49Z

I wonder if I should start a workout / weightloss journal. Many people have them and they're a good idea. It seems like a little too much work, though, so...

Anyway, my start weight is 255. I'm hoping to lose fifty pounds eventually, and that's while getting some muscle mass. I'm getting a trainer an hour a week for the next month or so. Was in there for two hours tonight, and it felt real good...I like the place. Thinking that Wednesdays will be swimming pool time.

Eh, I'll put this stuff on a filter and keep track of my progress weekly or so. Anyone interested?

For those of you who have seen Death Note...

2008-04-13T23:03:19Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2avdf289OY

and now: lawn, taxes, new clothes.

Gym membership!

2008-04-12T04:44:23Z

This coyote has a gym membership! Oh wow, this is going to do me a -huge- world of good. I'm looking at going three times a week, an hour or more each time.

This coyote also has a free session with a personal trainer...but they are hugely expensive, so I probably won't do much with trainers after this.

This coyote also celebrated with Taco Bell afterwards which explains why he needs a gym membership in the first place, but he is getting better with his eating habits.

I've been working out a lot at home the last few days, and it's amazing how much more physically comfortable everything is now.

Meet the new XKCD.

2008-04-10T06:38:42Z

http://sphericalcow.org/index.php?p=5

Today's is pretty awesome, too:
http://sphericalcow.org/index.php?p=16

Hey, what do you know, a new and intelligent webcomic that's only up to the 16th strip so far! Archives that won't kill your whole evening! Of course the fact that it appears to be roughly monthly is a bit of a downer.

Been getting some advice (and free supplies and sprouts!) from the organic gardener next door. He's awesome. I need to make a habit of getting to know my neighbors sooner in the future. In any case he's pinpointed some rock-free areas in our yardful of glacial till: Some spots of land that he worked in the past, that have since changed hands to this house! Hoping to get some great gardening done this weekend.

I think I just might make it to bed before midnight tonight. How awesome is that?

A gift from someone!

2008-04-08T08:24:55Z

A few weekends back, I went over to Eastern WA and brought along some incense and my wooden incense holder, among other things. Apparently when I came back, I dropped the incense holder while getting out of the car...because it was there lying in the dirt in the driveway today.

Except when I brought it in, I found my old incense holder was in fact sitting there on my altar. The new one is subtly different, too, in that it has an inlaid moon instead of an inlaid sun. It's definitely been outside for a while, but is in surprisingly good shape for apparently being there for a year or so. Plus it must have been parked on more than once.

Unless, of course, it just came out of thin air.

Anyway, last weekend was awesome. Met up with some local therian-folks, and discovered the awe and wonder that is gasworks by night! (Silverback's fault.) Totally awesome meeting folks, plus we stalked something that might have been a beaver at the park afterwards.

Gonna see if we can't do more stuff on various saturdays now, regular meets aside.

ick. sick.

2008-03-28T04:14:06Z

Been home from work three days now due to a really nasty cold...that's apparently also left the rest of the team at work bedridden, too. Day one was a fever of 101.5, day two was dizziness and sore throat, today is apparently sneezing and lots of tissues.

When can it be over? Geh, I need to work. Sick days don't exist for me. :(

ALSO!: My friend audespero is in need of cash quick-like and has a bunch of neat handmade jewelry up really cheap on Etsy. So HERE, take a look! Earrings and beads and things!

So!

2008-03-24T04:52:49Z

We got our electricity fixed! No more random internet cut-outs, and no more running across the house to turn the microwave off before it explodes whenever the voltage starts being...weird.

I also went over to eastern WA, climbed hills, adopted a tumbleweed, and visited Yote! Lots of fun, and it's very cold sleeping in the back of a car. Sad I only got to hang out with Yote for like an hour, but there's always the future!

Mmm, little vacations to keep sane. After being fixed up, my car's up to 32 MPG (up from 25) on the highway as well, which makes me quite happy.

Listen to Coyote, and keep your car maintained.

2008-03-22T04:27:55Z

I meant to get my oil changed a few hundred miles ago, but this nagging voice has been telling me I need full maintenance on my car. Day before heading out on a trip over an icy pass, I finally give in and force some time to take it in for full maintenance I can't quite afford.

...I got a kind of astonished call from the repair shop an hour after I dropped the car off. Apparently my front brakes were nonexistent and the rear ones down to 30%, and buried deep under the hood was the biggest rodent nest they'd ever seen. Also, completely clogged air filter.

The brakes scare me a bit. I always thought they were supposed to make a noise before they went out. Maybe that was the tiny squeak it had when I first got it? Wow. I put that off WAY too long.

I'll be glad to get out a little.