The historical cost of dancing medicine
I don’t think we say “webmaster” anymore.
Oh. Right.
I just remembered that if you have a weblog (or, "blog") you can totally post links to things you like and things you made.
He's gotta go over there and sing a song.
Finding the secret in your pencil
It's not made from an actual horse. | Do By Friday
This week's Do By Friday challenge is mine, and it's a weird one. Look at a sharpened pencil and imagine it has a secret in it; then, move your pencil around until a secret comes out.
I'm three pages in, and boy, does it ever look psychotic. But, I did discover one goodie:
All most people want to talk about is when they did something and why you did something.
That one's going in the thing.
I'm about one white cargo van away from having a Kiwanis basement in Chicago. Honk, honk.
Actually, I did also realize how many of my high school jobs were probably a front for something illegal. So.
Anyhoo. Here's this week's main episode as well as the free after show where I talked about my pencil. Which episodes, for some reason, Alex puts on YouTube. Which is weird. Anyway, pencils.
Sleeper cells
In junior high, I learned double-entry bookkeeping and did a bunch of both hard copy and digital data entry for my mom's residential real estate office. It was exhausting and tedious, but somehow the rows and the columns made me feel calm. But, nothing could prepare me for the first time I created my own computer-based spreadsheet. Formulas changed my brain.
Today, I'm still totally gaybones for spreadsheets, and my so-called friends never miss an opportunity to remind me of how weird this is. Friends are so precious.
I wish they'd understand that somehow the rows and the columns make me feel calm.
Celebrity Heights
Oh, like you never look it up? Really? Well. This might as well be my life's work. And now you know that the great Gwendoline Christie is 6′3″.
Scandinavian Actors
Hej hej. Scandinavian actors torment and confuse me. For I am from Ohio, and I went to public schools. So—with a little help from Chatty G.—I finally got a handle on separating my Mikkelsens from my Skarsgårds and my what-have-yous.
This is apparently something I deliberately spent time on.
Ephedrine Cost
I used to take an astonishing amount of Ephedrine HCl (for my work).
But once the democrat nanny state started trying to pin the blame for their dumb meth problem on men who play in bands while holding down a job where you have to wear a tie, it got really expensive, difficult to get, and it was eventually just made illegal. Productivity plunged. Cratered. So long, eighty-hour-weeks. You happy now, bitch?
Dude. I'm an adult. If I wanted meth, I'd buy meth. Don't blame the bad apples. Please just let me have my Dancing Medicine, because I need it for my work.
In summary, my spreadsheets are a land of contrasts. And Elizabeth Debicki is very tall.
Some Thought Technologies
Robin Sloan considers how to identify and balance the incoming media in our lives. "Flow is the feed…Stock is the durable stuff." I think the model can also be profound when applied to many other domains where we have to evaluate the benefits of the ephemeral versus the durable in life.
Matt Webb thinks about Theory of Mind and our relationship with the dinguses. "So perhaps all of this will be more intuitive if it comes with minimal viable identity, a kind of new skeuomorphism, and the ability to proactively say 'hey I can help with that' when there’s an opportunity to do so."
"In aviation, the Big Sky Theory is that two randomly flying bodies are very unlikely to collide, as the three-dimensional space is so large relative to the bodies." Strikes me that in some situations, the sky may get smaller. Relax, nerd. It's an analogy.
We have a lot of fun here
But, seriously, thanks for stopping by. You've made a happy man very old.
It's no secret that I write first to please myself, so it's admittedly a little nuts for the second audience to be people I may not know very well. But, I do really hope you're having fun. HMU if you have any requests or suggestions [🦋 | 🐘].
It takes temerity and courage for both of us to be here, and I think we're doing great.
Remember not to chase the clown car, and I'll see you soon.
A lagniappe.
I am covered with shame.
It was a riddle, and the punchline would be something like "Five won, five won, five won, five won" and it's the dumbest thing I've ever thought of and I could find no way to make it funny.— Merlin Mann (@hotdogsladies.bsky.social) February 7, 2025 at 5:43 AM
And, here, I had been specifically admonished not to try to explain the Philip Glass joke. 😔
Things I'm keeping an eye on
- The Double Thank You
- (Cf. The Double Goodbye)
- Any gesture involving touching your hand to your trunk and turning your head a little
- Also, no bowing with fancy pray hands. What are you, Steven Seagal?
- Also, quit the thing where you make a little heart with your hands. You look like a MUNI ad for Kaiser
- And, please. Stop saying "No problem." The response you're searching for is "You're welcome." Plus, that catchphrase is already taken, you lazy hack.
