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2024-04-22

Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality Jaron Lanier

Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality by Jaron Lanier
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This was a tough read for me. Lanier is a personal hero–my 2024 resolutions (code, film, jazz) were taken from his talks. This book is trash. He is self-serving, name-dropping, and sees himself as the hero in every story (even when humbly discussing his faults, he sounds pompous). I am not sure what I was looking for, but this is not it. His victimhood, lack of self-reflection, and pride in every step is a survival mechanism but he does not have the academic chops to grok the meaning. I think that may be the fundamental failure of this book. It is an undergraduate work.

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2024-04-22

Two of Pentacles

On the Two of Pentacles tarot card, a man standing by the waves of the sea, deftly juggling two pentacles that represent juggling different situations in life (for example, work and home). It is about choices and priorities. You might feel as if you don’t have the heart to choose one thing over the other. You might choose to focus on one thing and ignore another temporarily, keeping both alive. However, this allows neither to thrive.

Sometimes, juggling two things can also be a lifesaver, allowing you to have a failsafe in the event things don’t go your way.

The Two is, as always, bound up in the forces of change, and of balance. Like its brothers, the Two of Pentacles can mean good or ill, but it as a strong indicator that the status quo will be disrupted. There will be challenges in your future, but your fate is largely in your own hands in the sense that the final outcome depends own how you respond to these challenges. The suit of this card suggests your best outcome is one that can be reached through prioritization, time-management, multi-tasking and careful planning.

2024-04-21

Phish @ Sphere

https://videopress.com/v/J0CWtLQh?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

Part of the agenda was to find the best Del Taco between Woodbridge and Las Vegas. We tried Baker (closed), Barstow (closed), and Hesperia. The answer is the Woodbridge Del Taco!

2024-04-19

Ku

2024-04-18

Hagalaz

2024-04-18

Hypallage, Handicaps, and Happy Birthdays

Recap

This week at Alakazam Comics in Irvine, CA, the Game Show celebrates Glenn’s birthday with pizza, cake, and killing–we continue the slaughter of an evil undead dwarven cult in the Crypt of Talhund. Defeating a mummy and collecting a shield guardian. We return to Phandelver to learn the shard’s evil corruption has spread & then chase off down a long tunnel in pursuit.

Lisa made cookies

Architect’s Tomb

The statue is an old shield guardian bound to the crypt’s architect, who was buried here with several sheaves of his best architectural plans. The corrupted energies unleashed by the mind flayers bound the designs to the corpse of the dwarf, creating a mummy wrapped in architectural plans. If the characters have put the crypt’s haunts to rest (see the “Purifying the Crypt” section), the mummy doesn’t animate and the statue doesn’t move. Otherwise, the mummy pushes off the lid to the sarcophagus and rises to slay intruders, while the shield guardian protects it. The mummy has complete knowledge of the crypt, and might, for example, move through the rotating sanctum (area P14) to intercept characters who flee.

If a character spends an action, invokes the name of Dumathoin, and succeeds on a DC 14 Intelligence (Religion) check, the shield guardian and the mummy stop attacking. The creatures attack the characters again if they reenter the room.

What’s Next?

In the best case scenario, the characters recover all three obelisk fragments and put the dangers in the Starmetal Hills to rest.

Yet there are still leads for the characters to pursue. The characters haven’t found any more missing townspeople. Perhaps more concerning, they’ve learned about the mind flayer fanatics lurking deeper underground in a place called Illithinoch, and the characters now know how to get there.

In any case, the characters’ next step is to return to Phandalin to rest and learn what they can about the mind flayer fanatics.

Vocab

Scenes from the table

Dice

Cody and I are still leading the charge of quality dice.

Garner

This is my current character sheet–I am still looking for a wheel chair.

Here is my current mini, I have not painted it yet.

Weapons

Cake cutter and ice cream scoop.

2024-04-17

Eight of Cups

On the Eight of Cups tarot card, a man has abandoned eight cups to turn toward the moon. This is the morning after a night of excess. It is now time to realize that you may have squandered your emotions on something or someone and it wasn’t justified. You need to head for a place or state of being where you can throw off your reserve.

It is time to nurture the things or individuals you hold dear, whether or not they have satisfied your desires. A new dream is calling you – it may have been doing so for some time, but finally you are aware of it.

The Eight suggests that there is stability and security in your life, but at a personal cost. You are probably unfulfilled by your current life need to make lifestyle changes. Depending on the rest of your spread, it may be a strong push for the abandonment of something and that you to move on, and find the courage to strike out new directions. You will have to look closely at your work, your relationship, and your own beliefs to identify the source of your dissatisfaction, and then decide if you are willing to withdrawal and set aside some of your life’s stability in order to find happiness.