I never finish anyth

Let me show a recurring pattern in my life.

When 12, I was into robotics. I read many books on building gadgets, and on artificial intelligence. I accumulated spare motors, microchips, microcontrollers - anything I thought would be useful. And I assembled them. I know the feel of epoxy on my hands and how capacitor smoke spells. I assembled a walk cycle controller after the design that had worked for others, but they were dead bricks. I assembled crawlers that were mostly the same as working ones other people built. Their designs were not good enough, they needed improved. But my designs didn't crawl anywhere. Other projects came to the foreground. A working autonomous robot was never completed.

Serifs and Typography

Any mind-machine interface has 3 attributes: Learnability, Efficiency, and Memorability. An optimal system can be learned easily, used quickly, and is easy to remember or re-learn. Writing is a mind-machine interface. This paper focuses on efficiency. There are two warring factions of fonts, Serif and Sans serif. To determine the most readable of the two requires understanding of the reading process.

X-COM: Countering the Alien Threat

It was dark.

As the X-Com recovery team we were to take down any hostiles, save civilian lives, and recover alien artifacts for study. Casualties had been high. There were only 5 of us on this mission. Two guarded our landing craft (Skyranger) while the others moved toward the entrance of the UFO. Standard procedure was to station sentries and sweep the surroundings, entering the craft only after the area was secure and all agents were ready to storm the craft. This time we would go in as soon as possible, since without flares it would be best if any fighting happens inside the craft, in the dark we were vulnerable to attacks from beyond our sight.

Censor

What you see and what you do determine who you are physically. Your brain is shaped by these choices. Lab rats that are separated into groups of varying environments - ranging from solitary confinement to large cages with objects and other rats to interact with - are then dissected and their brains measured. Those from the enriched environment have larger cortexes that normal, and those from impoverished environment have smaller cortexes. At any age the brain can expand, and if a rat is moved from one cage to another the brain responds accordingly. Another study subjected mice to 5 hours of loud rock and immobilization, and then measured a decrease in dendrite count.

When I was twelve I knew this. (I had slightly unusual reading habits.) I was selective with what music I listened to. I didn't go to concerts or dance performances if I could avoid it. If forced to go, I would usually mutter that the volume was too high and that the beat overwhelmed the melody. I covered my ears and waited for the event to close. Yet when I chose the music, I listened to it a lot. I did not know why I did, but with music such a large part of my life, I determined that it all would be flawless and pure. The music I listened to was Classical, Celtic, Electronica - in all cases instrumental. Language is flawed and arbitrary, so it was not permitted.

Welcome

This blog currently has 2 purposes: I will post an essay once a month, and I announce and release 7drl's as they happen.