Author: helava

Suicide, Guns, Transience

One thing I used to think, long ago, was that suicidal people were constantly suicidal. Or that people who murdered would always be on the knife-edge of murdering someone.
One of the biggest reasons I want it to be really hard to get a gun is that over the years, it’s become really clear that my conception of suicidal/murderous people was wrong.
I think it’s significantly *more correct* to say that these things are highly context-dependent. A suicidal person may be contemplating ending their life for a long time. Let’s call that a low-energy state. But the moment where they *do* it is a point where their thoughts cross a threshold where it’s worth whatever difficulty to do the job. A high-energy state. Same, perhaps, with murder.
The problem with a gun is it makes these things so trivial, it lowers the amount of “energy” required to a point where basically anyone can cross that line at any time.
An argument can cross that line in the heat of the moment, even if at *no other point in their life* they’ve crossed that line, and instantaneously, you’ve got a dead person and a ruined life. And it’s *wildly* harder to cross the line if the tool is a knife, or a bat, or your fists, because the amount of energy required to actually do the deed is *so* much higher. Same goes with murder. Particularly mass-murder.
I want gun control because I want that line to be harder to cross. I acknowledge that it’ll be an extraordinarily unlikely event to be able to make that line uncrossable. And I still think it’d be massively valuable to make it *as hard as possible* to cross.

‘merica

Welp. America continues to be America.
And by that, you know, I don’t feel anything really about the Vegas shooting. It’s what we brought on ourselves. The logical conclusions of the policies we implement. Give guns to everyone, and some nutcases who want to murder a bunch of people will have trivial access to guns.
Oh, but if you make guns illegal, only criminals will have guns! I know someone’s gonna say it, because someone says it every time. Two points. One, Australia did it, and we have data that this is not the case. America isn’t so different. Two, yes, you make stupid things illegal. Sometimes criminals then circumvent that. That happens when we make stuff illegal. But the reason we do it is that we establish the kind of country we want to be. So if you’re unwilling to take even the most basic step towards saving *literally thousands* of lives every year, pardon me if I don’t give a shit about your supposed moralizing. You have nothing to stand on.
But yeah – do I feel outrage? No. Why would I? This is exactly what we’re constantly asking for. Do I feel anger? Of course – but I felt that years ago when folks did nothing after fucking *Sandy Hook*. So the anger’s just a dull disappointment that America has to constantly remind me that it’s worse than I hope, and more gutless than I expected.
The thing I keep wondering is, “What if?” What if my kids are one day murdered by some idiot with a gun? I *choose* to live here. In this country, where psychopaths and idiots can arm themselves to the teeth. If one of my kids is gunned down, I *have* to hold some responsibility for that.
And how is that going to feel? Will I be able to live with myself?

Kid Book

I want a kids’ book about a kid with a pet ankylosaurus. They can ride it around, it sits outside their school and waits for them (though it keeps eating the plants, which infuriates the groundskeeper). It’s a given the entire time that this is the only kid who’s ever had a dinosaur pet. On the last page, they’re trundling down the street, and over the crest of the road, they meet another kid riding a T-Rex.

Short Story

Short story about a teen whose parents are significantly older than his peers. They’re quirky and sometimes very distant, with a melancholy that pervades everything they do. But the one thing he always knows is they love him very much. Late in the story, his parents tell him he is a clone of their first son, and today he is as old as their first son was when he died.

Drums & Learning

After many years of small upgrades here and there, the ION drum kit I’d originally gotten for Rock Band is about where I want it to be. First, the bass drum pedal got replaced with a pedal with an actual beater, that was wired up with a little switch for RB. I think Ei-Nyung got that for me as a gift.
Second, I picked up the third cymbal “expansion” for the set.
A few years later, I picked up a Roland V-Drum snare off of Craigslist. I remember driving out to some trailer park in the South Bay, but it was worth it. Got a full-sized mesh snare for something like $100.
That was great, until RB finally kind of “fell off”, and I decided I wanted to maybe try learning how to play the drums, instead of just playing souped-up Rock Band. So I picked up a cheap Roland TB-3 “drum brain” off of eBay for $45, I think. Was way cheaper than it might have been otherwise.
The things that became obvious from having something that made actual drum sounds was that the hi-hat was the “least normal” part of this. I’d been using the original RB bass drum pedal as the hi-hat trigger, and it was both really loud (the pedal made a ton of noise) and it was a binary switch, instead of a gradient, so you couldn’t have the hi-hat half open. So that got swapped out with a Roland hi-hat trigger on eBay. Maybe another $45, I think.
Then I picked up a new hi-hat, because the single-zone cymbal that came with the ION kit was a.) fairly loud when you hit it, and b.) didn’t sound right anymore, because it was clear it wasn’t doing what a real hi-hat would have. So off to eBay again for a used CY-5, which cost about $40. It was good, though, because the ION cymbal got used as a 2nd crash, since the drum brain had a spare input that I wasn’t using. 😃
Last, I picked up a kick drum pad. I’d been using the bass drum pedal to hit the pad that the snare replaced, which was just sitting on the ground. It didn’t “bounce” the way a normal bass drum would have, and periodically it’d just “wander off” while playing. So that got replaced with something proper. HUGE upgrade in how things feel.
So now, save *maybe* a CY-8 to replace the single-zone ride cymbal, I’m done! At least I’ve got a kit that is definitely not skill-limited, and won’t be for the foreseeable future, and probably will never be a limiting factor for me. Maybe the kids if they get into it, ever, but that’s a long way off.
The ION tom pads are kind of … dull, when you hit them, but that’s fine. I looked around, just on a lark, and even getting up to kits that are in the $$$$$$$ range, the only thing I’d really want is a hi-hat trigger that has more of a real action – with a pedal, stand, and both “sides” of the hi-hat, rather than just simulating it. But I certainly don’t need it, and couldn’t justify the expense.
So yeah – for less than half the cost of what I think of as a competitive kit (plus a bunch of searching on the internet), I think I’m done! Scratched the upgrade itch. 🙂
—
I also took another lesson with Wes Carroll, and man – again – if you ever want to learn … something. Basically anything he’s willing to teach you, you should talk to him. Every single time I’ve had a lesson with him, the process has gone something like this.
Wes: Do this thing. It’ll be difficult.
Me: *tries to do it*, but can’t.
The thing is, at this point, the thing he’s asking me to do is easy to understand, but *impossible* to execute. I get cognitively overloaded to the point where I literally can’t think, or talk, or whatever. Trying to keep track of where to skip a beat, or what have you – I just can’t do it, at all.
Wes: Okay, now let’s try this adjustment.
Me: *tries to do it*, sort of starts to approach something, but much less static-brain than before.
Wes: Okay, now let’s try this adjustment.
Me: *tries to do it*, and can do it. After a minute or two, can do it *automatically*, in a way that seemed incomprehensible five minutes ago. But not only that, by walking through the adjustments he was making, which weren’t to the *task*, but were to *how to think about the task*, I’ve now got a new tool I can try to apply to all manner of similar things.
—
I can’t tell you how mindbending it is – I think you’ve gotta experience it. But it’s really … cool. If I’d been learning like this since I was younger – if I’d had a teacher that could help me understand the mental hangups I was running into this well, I honestly believe that this would be the difference between “powering through” learning, and hating it, and *loving to learn*.
So yeah – if you’ve got a kid who needs math tutoring & test prep, or anything you can find here: http://www.wescarroll.com I’d HUGELY recommend you give him a shot.
And look – I know not everyone’s into drums. But I think honestly, it’d be worth calling him up & doing a drum lesson *JUST* to have the experience of going through this process, whether you want to learn drums specifically or not.

Game Idea

An RPG that takes place in modern day. All characters & environments are made up of flat squares – each character is just a single square with a mark that identifies them. The color and size of the square are related to their dominant emotion at the moment and their projected outward confidence.
As you get to know them better, their size & color both change to reflect better their inner emotional state. Auras can be built out of combinations of characters of different (or similar) sizes and colors, and “puzzles” can be solved by creating different kinds of auras. Mob frenzies. Communal depression. Enthusiasm, etc.

Tesla

I keep seeing headlines of “Tesla-killer” blah blah blah, and every one of them completely misses the point of what Tesla’s been able to accomplish.
The big one that everyone’s obviously aware of is that they made an EV when no one else had made a commercially-viable EV before. Right? Obvious.
The second one is that they made the Supercharger network, which right now, completely changes the value proposition of “Tesla” vs. “Any other EV”.
The one that folks miss is that the Model 3 wasn’t just a commercially-viable EV. It’s an *astonishing* car. Yes, you can nitpick that certain things aren’t as awesome as they could be. But my point isn’t “Teslas are great!” it’s that they’re *defensible*, because there isn’t an apparent way “in” as a competitor.
Do you need a faster car than the 100DL? Absolutely not in daily use. Teslas are (to date) awful track cars, but that’s a niche application we can safely ignore.
Do you need a *nicer* car than the Model S or X? Not really, unless you have extremely specific tastes or special needs.
You might want a cheaper car than the 3, sure. But that’s coming over time, and right now, no one can make a *significantly* cheaper car that competes with the 3. The Bolt is wonderful, but it’s only incrementally cheaper, and without Superchargers, lacks a major ingredient in Tesla’s success.
And that’s the point. The Bolt isn’t a Tesla-killer because it’s only incrementally cheaper. The Lucid Air isn’t a Tesla-killer because it may be incrementally faster, but who cares? Faraday Future is dead. Porsche’s Mission-E or whatever looks great, but no Superchargers means limited utility means that if you’re cross-shopping the Tesla and the Mission-E, you have to REALLY REALLY REALLY want the Mission-E, and it has to be an emotional, rather than pragmatic decision.
For someone to be a Tesla-killer, they need to build a better car than one of the best cars on the market, AND build a giant infrastructure project. No startup can do that. No established car company is going to take that big a risk.
I’m looking forward to massively expanded EV availability in the next decade. But the articles that keep trying to crown a new Tesla-killer? Forget it.

Parenting Struggle

Parents: have you had a situation where your kid wanted to do something, you spent the time & $$ to do it, and they immediately refused to do it? How did you deal with it?
In my case, Kuno wanted to do soccer again. At the first class, 15 minute she in he said he was tired & didn’t want to continue. I tried to get him to go back out, we took a break, tried again, and then he just collapsed in a pile & said he didn’t want to do it.
I was *pissed*, but tried to be calm. We left, and before we left, I asked him if he wanted to try again, and if we left we wouldn’t come back. He didn’t want to try again. So we left, and I canceled the ready of his soccer classes. I’m not sure how to have handled this better, but it’s clear there are better ways to have handled it.
Advice, please.

Apples

re: Apple’s announcements – the things I’m most interested in were the cellular watch (even though I don’t typically wear a watch, this is definitely useful for swimming, and the price isn’t … mindbending)… and… hm. Everything else (even the X) feels evolutionary more than revolutionary.
I’m jazzed that iTunes will support 4K, and that effectively all my media “evolves” with it, which was a huge ?, but they answered in a way I’m really happy with. The catch is, I don’t really care all that much for 4K/HDR just yet, and the investment I’d need to make to upgrade is significant. It’d be a new ATV, a new TV, and a new receiver (since our old one is missing some critical HDMI support) – which means an ATV upgrade is effectively a $1500 upgrade with a shitload of extra gear.
And while sure, 4K is interesting, I haven’t seen anything that (for the size of the TV we have) makes a great case for it being worth the upgrade cost.
So the ATV is a no.
I need a new iPhone – the 6+ has fallen way off the technology curve. The pricing on the new models is … weird. The 8 is what, $849? Which puts it firmly in the camp of “really fucking expensive”. It’s significant enough that to me, the difference between $849 and $999 is kind of a wash, given that I keep my phones for about 3-4 years (until they’re really no longer supported by the manufacturer).
But with any product (and while Apple does better than most, they’re not immune to this) their first generation of anything always sees a significant improvement the next go-around. So while the 8 is an iteration on a well known & proven formula, the X is … ? Who knows. It’s also unlikely to see massive 3rd party adoption of the novel display because you can’t develop an app for just the leading edge of consumers. So you’ve got this marvelous display for photos & web stuff, and I don’t know that that’s a critical selling point for me.
So where’s that leave someone in my situation? Spend $$ for an 8, or spend $$+ for an X, where the features are maybe interesting but not that critical?
Chances are, I’ll skip the watch – just because I honestly find them uncomfortable to wear. Even in the swimming situation, it’d be nice, but not necessarily critical. Chances are I’ll skip the ATV until 4K is more firmly established as a more long-term standard. Then the decision is mostly 8 or X, and the answer I’d guess given the pricing is *probably* X at 64gb.
But who knows? The 6+ is annoyingly slow (and uncomfortable) at this point. Maybe it’ll hang on for another year, though.

Dice Words

One thing I wanted to do is design a dice-based word game. I got a little bit into it, and found that my original thought wasn’t really practical to implement – having some “communal” dice and some individual dice, and you form a word based on those things. It’d work as a videogame (though it wouldn’t feel interesting), but it doesn’t work as a physical game.
Part of the pleasure is moving the dice around and manipulating physical stuff, but if the dice are communal, it’s hard to move ’em around and think of a good word to make.
So maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the point is that some of your dice just let you take other player’s dice. I really liked the contrast between the bigger dice and the smaller dice, and I liked having color-coded vowels, consonants, wilds, and powerups. Looked nice and vibrant without being overwhelming or confusing.
There’s another potential layer in having characters with unique skills, and potentially powerup cards & such. But I feel like until the core word game makes more sense, it’s not worth diving into those things just yet.
I like the idea of having powerups let you take other peoples’ stuff, but I’m not sure I like my stuff being taken.
I wonder if maybe it’d be worth having the communal dice form a 2×2 grid, and you’d have to use your individual dice to form the outer layers of a Boggle board. Then maybe if you place your dice, your opponents can also place their dice, and you do it in turns somehow… Hm.
How would that work? I like the idea of being able to build off of other peoples’ letters, but if you can do that, then everyone in the end will just get a kind of communal super-word. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe the goal is to build a big word matrix cooperatively? Hrmmm. I don’t think so. One of the real joys of word games is beating someone with a better word.
Hm. The Boggle board thing is worth exploring. The original concept for Word Ace was actually around Boggle, not Scrabble. We ended up doing a Scrabble thing at the time because I’d communicated the original idea badly. But maybe there’s something there.