John Baber-Lucero
Person - Action - Object 2014-03-23 My person-action-object (PAO) system using major system words exclusively. Some are a stretch, but it's a very easy system to learn with the major system crutch. Note: Animals make great objects. I like to distinguish 03 and 3, so I've actually got 110 triplets. My real personal list replaces many celebrity and generic names with friends: I suggest you do…
Cairo Composite Manager 2011-10-11 This is what I had to do to get Cairo Composite Manager working to get expose-like behavior for normal Gnome. Sergey Davidoff has a working version in his ppa. Follow his directions . Because I have no idea what I'm doing, this advice should be taken with a grain of salt. I make no claims that following my directions won't erase all your data and destroy your…
Beautiful Things 2008-01-07 The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. Henry Miller perspective Steampunk Datamancer Steam Punk Workshop Língua Portuguesa vi Spiders Evolution Biological Stellar Geological Smoke curling Liquid crowning Clouds Intricate Machinery Steam toys Engines Carburetors…
Alfred E. Neuman quotes up to 2005 2008-01-05 Fa, fa, fa. Alfred E. Neuman `_. I ran that DVD through a simple script to extract this collection. I've missed a lot of the late ones, which I'll add eventually. */ --> Show me a trunk murderer, and I'll show you a sloppy packer. (Issue 038) Bars are something which if you go into too many of, you're apt to come out singing a few of, and maybe land…
Computers 2007-05-22 The city's central computer told you?! R2D2, you know better than to trust a strange computer! C3P0 When I teach math to students who want to use calculators or argue with people who like voting by touchscreen, I always find myself trying to explain why you should be careful trusting machines too much. Even though they make very few mistakes of their own, human…
Laarni Marital status: Married (to John ) Eye color: Brown Hair color: Black
Now These are things I'm doing now: Married to Laarni Raising two boys Living in Columbia, Maryland, USA . This is a now page Updated: 2025-10-20
Wishlist And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous. Exodus 23:8 I have been unable to think of any polite way to tell this to people directly, so I'm going to say it on my webpage. I have enough stuff. If you want to purchase a present for me, please donate as much as you would spend on me to one of the following charities. A $5.00…
Today I Learned "Meta" meant "after" in Greek, not "about" since the Metaphysics section came literally after the Physics section in the organization of Aristotle's treatises. (2020-09-07) Penguin and Random House merged in 2013 . (2020-06-12) " Selfie s" are usually backwards images. It's obviously easier to take a picture of yourself that looks like a mirror, but I assumed the image would be…
Monosyllables 2025-03-25 Short words are best and old words, when short, are the best of all. Winston Churchill I don't know how other languages work, but here in English, we love monosyllables . That's why using man for human sounds so good — though this now may have too much baggage . The space of all possible monosyllables is like the space of reasonable domain names . It feels large, but you…
Man 2025-03-25 That's just like, your opinion, man. The Dude The reason the word man was historically used for human ( mankind , chairman , etc.) is not that English speakers were so sexist they denied women's existence. It's because originally in English, it didn't mean male . There were two kinds of men : wers and wives (singular wife ) or wifmen and "wermen" (really wǽpmen ). We still use wer…
Save and compare elements 2024-09-16 scripts The javascript below makes it so double clicking an element on a webpage gives the option to save its contents or compare to what was previously saved. function get_display() { return document.querySelector("#floater_display"); } function update_display(text) { document.querySelector("#floater_display").innerText = text; } function…
Spicy Cabbage Soup 2024-06-10 recipes Adapted from this recipe to Reduce salt Add heat Reduce carbohydrates Simplify cooking If I prepare the vegetables for storage long before cooking, I keep the onions separate and still chop the garlic fresh at cooking time. Spicy Cabbage Soup Toggle units 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 large diced white onion 6+ cloves minced garlic 8 cups of sodium free…
Brother printers 2023-08-25 2023-08-25 I buy genuine Brother toner out of gratitude . short
Yara Lightfoot 2023-06-05 60% of quotes I like have dubious attribution. When I find a saying without an obvious source, I attribute it to Yara Lightfoot. Found a provable source? Tell me and I'll update. She's a Swedish-Hobbit name from this generator that doesn't show up in google. Clear source History viewed from the inside is always a dark, digestive mess, far different from the easily…
Gerrymandering 2022-11-13 Gerrymandering is a nasty thing only a politician would like. Few point out there are at least two direct solutions to the problem: Canonical lines where no human makes a choice A game theoretic trick that lets parties fight over redistricting in a way that comes out fair to both No districts at all, representatives represent whole state I would say politicians get it and…
Python packaging 2022-10-22 This keeps happening. I write something tiny in Python for my own use. Then I realize I want to add just one dependency and immediately want to rewrite in Rust just because cargo works so much better than pip. I should think of Rust as much, much harder to use, but here we are. short
Correlation vs. causation 2021-10-21 Charm is the ability to insult people without offending them; nerdiness the reverse. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb Parents observed nerds' tastes and made their kids listen to Mozart and play chess. I've just realized in 100 years, people will force their kids to play Dungeons & Dragons and watch Marvel movies . short showerthoughts
Philosophical Positions 2020-08-19 Black's spheres Previous position: The spheres are distinguished by a property called "identity". Each ball has a distinct identity, so there are two spheres. Current position: These spheres are so identical that if one had an eye and looked up, it would see "the other one"'s eye looking back at it, batting its eyelashes at the exact same time, etc. Clearly these…
Robot Pancakes 2020-04-27 2024-05-11 My son has gotten accustomed to pre-made frozen pancakes. "Made by a robot in a factory". Through trial and error, I have figured out how to make pancakes that he can't distinguish from pre-made ones: Robot Pancakes Toggle units ½ of what the directions say for Bisquick with 2 teaspoons of sugar In one big bowl (dry) 1½ cups flour 3 tablespoons sugar 1¾…
Building edbrowse on raspbian 2018-09-23 cmake: sudo apt-get install cmake xsltproc: sudo apt-get install xsltproc tidy-html5: git clone git://github.com/htacg/tidy-html5 cd tidy-html5/build/cmake cmake ../.. make sudo make install curl: sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev libpcre: sudo apt-get install libpcre3-dev readline: sudo apt-get install libreadline-dev python modules: sudo apt-get…
Doomsday practice page 2017-02-12 This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays. Arthur Dent I made a quick page to test your ability to use the doomsday rule . short link
Hedcut 2015-07-21 Thanks to this gimp script you can now make a hedcut of yourself to pretend you’ve appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
Things to read online 2015-07-13 A pixel artist renounces pixel art SVG by hand list links
Good things microsoft has invented 2015-05-05 2023-06-22 Unfortunately, people are not rebelling against Microsoft. They don't know any better. Steve Jobs Favicons Beautiful background images for the login screen list quotation short
Tutorials 2015-05-05 How to make movie posters of different types short list links
RAS Syndrome 2015-05-05 Not that I have anything much against redundancy. But I said that already. Larry Wall JoyToKey which converts USB joystick input into keyboard and mouse input. Prof. Knuth's letter to the Patent Office Anime Style Simpsons Poster from this deviant art deviation . Anime Style Futurama Poster from this other deviant art deviation . The only legitimate hit when looking through…
Some good things about computers 2015-05-05 Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. Pablo Picasso model M keyboards (Mine was $1 at Goodwill ) Mozilla Firefox Stylish ( a style I made ) Glaze Black Theme Fly around Baltimore . Controls: Arrows, A, Z, space google for audio Wikipedia (They also like lists ) Project Gutenberg : full text of any book out of copyright. SDF provides free…
2048 2015-05-05 The difference between 2048 and gambling is that now that I've won 2048 once, I never have to play again. link short
Joni Mitchell 2014-05-10 Joni Mitchell is great, but I try to think of her lyrics as nonsense (a la Tori Amos 1 ) because they're always "introspective" 2 . Today's case in point: youtube told me against my will that instead of a bunch of gibberish about astrology, Little Green is about giving up her newborn daughter for adoption. 1: Jeez, five seconds looking for some nonsense lyrics by her…
How to fold a US letter to fit in a small sized business envelope 2014-05-10 I never remember this and it's the kind of thing older people make fun of young ones for not knowing. Folding and inserting Letters in Envelopes short link how to
XKCD Plotting with Matplotlib 2014-04-22 The latest Matplotlib now lets you make plots that look hand drawn . (Even better with the xkcd font ). short link
Trivia 2014-03-25 Alex Trebek: He took control of the Ford Motor Company after Henry Ford's death. Ken Jennings: Who was Ford? Alex Trebek: More specific. Ken Jennings: I was afraid you were going to say that. The peanut is neither a pea, nor a nut. Koalas have fingerprints House cats, tigers, and cheetahs can't taste sweetness How Romans multiplied Roman Numerals, and why it works list trivia
Games I'll play if I ever get the time, money, and equipment 2014-03-25 When I was a kid we had role models. We didn't have computer games; we were brought up properly: by television. Jimmy Carr Limbo Portal Miegakure Heavy Rain short list video games
How to write in pig-elvish 2014-03-22 Eplacéra nyäen etterló "K" ithwó äen etterlí "C" Ovémí héten irstfë etterlä fóen achéï ordwó óten héten ndéen Fíen héten ordwá síen esslú hantë 4 etterslï onglá, ddäen héten ndingéa -en Fíen héten ordwí síen ongerlá utben ndséó níen äen owelvó, ddäen -th Fíen héten ordwï síen ongerló utben ndséá níen äen onsonantcë, ddäen äen andomrë owelvä óten héten ndéen…
Math Links 2014-03-20 Oh, that scene in Bladerunner actually makes sense. Game theory Multiplication. Not trying at math can cost you $15,000. Great algorithm to answer Gerrymandering. Java Sliderule. Large collection of so-so quality math videos. () Not about math, but great example of teaching. Circles are awesome. Chatrooms that allow chatting in LaTeX () An instance of a teacher falling for a…
Links 2014-03-20 Mostly Moleman Pentadactyl SDF Oh, that scene in Bladerunner actually makes sense. At least this time it's in Greek. 3 minute NPR story. Dollar Tree, you've got everything I need. Cool -- if only for appearance -- cool! Recaptcha, we have a problem. Gimme five. Fresh guac makes me hungry. 60 seconds. Mexico City mulls marriage that expires after two years. To my old master.…
How to only highlight comments in vim 2011-12-16 I prefer * to parse code and literature with my mind and eyes, not weird highlighting. So I usually have syntax highlighting off. But having commented out code look different is really helpful. If you would like that kind of setup, drop " Turn off all syntax highlighting except comments and errors which are actually useful. set t_Co=256 syntax on…
The Metric System 2011-11-11 Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Meter A centimeter? If any centimeters come crawling into this room, I'll step on 'em! Sally, Peanuts Before explaining why you should learn to love the metric system , we should give the traditional measurement systems a fair hearing. They do have a few advantages. The Few Advantages of Traditional Systems Over Metric…
xbindkeys 2011-10-11 This is what I had to do to compile xbindkeys-1.8.5 on Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwahl). The xbindkeys-1.8.3 available in the current ubuntu repositories crashes after pressing 7 listened for keys. Because I have no idea what I'm doing, this advice should be taken with a grain of salt. I make no claims that following my directions won't erase all your data and destroy your…
Responsibility 2011-02-08 Death, then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live if we cannot bear to die. William Penn I just realized that even if cryonics made sense and was 100% effective. I have 0 faith in 20 generations of people to be even slightly responsible. short downers quotation
Diginumeracy 2010-06-23 Hey, as long as he's got eight fingers and eight toes, he's fine by me. Homer Simpson I've seen ways to count to 6 , 10 , 15 , and even 31 on one hand. I've found the most natural method to be one that counts to 20 taught to me by my friend Romie. Instead of counting fingers or memorizing hand positions you count the joints and tips in your five fingers. Each finger has…
Mario Adventure 2010-03-31 Controller is so intuitive, even your mum can play. Shigeru Miyamoto I could never explain to you how great a game Mario Adventure is. The only way is for you to play it. Here is the nes rom . You'll have to figure out on your own how to get and use an NES emulator . short link video games quotation
L.A. 2009-08-19 This post used to have a long rant about how much I hated L.A. because idiots kept slamming their cars into me. This song is in the same vein and much less whiny. When it's grey in L.A. I sure like it that way, Cause there's way too much sunshine round here... I don't know about you, I get so sick of blue skies Whenever they always appear. And I sure love the sound of the rain…
脏话 2008-09-10 Yes, Cuban 'b'. All of the extremely dirty words in English are monosyllabic ( some examples ). It's always been funny to me that there were certain grunts we can utter that make people uncomfortable and make children giggle and blush. I always figured there must be some words like these in Chinese. They would have the added bonus of having a single chinese character, i.e. a…
Community College Addresses in the Los Angeles area 2008-01-08 It took me a while to find all of these addresses; I hope this does somebody some good. Los Angeles City College 855 N. Vermont Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90029 East Los Angeles College 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez Monterey Park, CA 91754 Los Angeles Harbor College 1111 Figueroa Place Wilmington, CA 90744 Pierce College 6201 Winnetka Ave.…
Applications I need to remember exist 2008-01-06 Software and cathedrals are much the same -- first we build them, then we pray. Sam Redwine GUI psdash winmerge zenmap Retroshare Artha Theme Font and Size Changer Wily twilio gmusicbrowser PDF-shuffle Swiffy OGMrip flightgear screenlets gdesklets SheepShaver Marble CrossOver Fontmatrix OpenGrade Disk space visualizers ncdu gt5 gdmap windirstat…
Decadence 2006-11-28 This morning I ate a piece of Dove Promises candy that I'd received as a gift. I noticed that there was a message printed in the foil wrapper. Was the message " You will find happiness with a new love " or "Your lucky numbers are 5 9 17 18 24 46"? No, it said Get your feet massaged. Do I really need to spoil myself some more? I'm already eating a bar of chocolate. short
Calculators 2006-09-01 Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. Pablo Picasso “Why don't they let us use calculators here?!” I've been asked the above question by 90% of my college freshmen. I'll explain why calculators are forbidden on exams and generally discouraged for use in most math classes at most institutions of higher education. “What's with this university?” Almost anybody…
Miscellaneous stuff 2005-04-05 Num me vexo? Alfred Novus Homo Zombo.com is probably the most useful site on the internet after wikipedia.org . Math Rules Private Eye cover collection Many are dirty. An Anglish Wiki . Labels by the Sheet .com A tutorial on how to read the Zippy daily comic . Not too pretensious and, astoundingly, serious! Only have a minute? Try Book-a-minute . Generate your own…