Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Steven Stadnicki's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, April 4th, 2012
9:54 pm	Sunday's puzzle - the solution! For those of you who might still be wondering about the solution, here's the full explanation: ( Cut-tagged for your protection ) Current Mood: accomplished (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 2nd, 2012
1:56 pm	A hint for Letter Maze For those of you still working on (or still interested in) the puzzle, a hint to guide you along: ( cut-tagged for your spoiler protection, of course ) Current Mood: dirty (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
10:46 am	Umm, yeah... ...wow, it's been a little while. Umm, hi! For better or worse, this isn't actually a 'welcome back' post - I just wanted to hit up all my social media with this. A puzzle for you to enjoy on a lazy Sunday: Can you make it from the A in the top left of this grid to the Z in the bottom right, always going either up one letter (for instance, A to B or G to H) or down one letter (for instance, N to M)? The alphabet wraps around, so you can go from Z up to A or A down to Z too. Try as hard as you can, and see where you get! START A B A V U T U T S R Q P Z Y X W R Q P Q R U T S A B C D M N U V W V Q R B G F E L O T S N O P I C H I J K P Q R M L K J D E D G H I J K J C B A A B C F E F G H K D S Z Z O N M L K J I L E T Y A J K R Q P O H G F U Z B I L S T S N S T E V Y C H O P Q R O R U D W X D G J K L M N Q V C B A E F I H G F O P W X Y Z END Current Mood: amused (18 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 26th, 2011
7:12 pm	Gedankenexperiment Some thoughts on someone else’s journal have left me thoughtful in turn, and more than a bit curious about how my friends feel about the matter - and yes, that’s every bit as vague as it sounds I’m trying not to be too explicit about the topic, for fear of biasing things too much. So I put together a ‘pop quiz’ of sorts; this is a lot of homework, I know, but anyone who’s willing to have a look at it and offer their thoughts will be greatly appreciated... 1) Which of the following questions, as phrased, would you say have concrete yes-or-no answers? (Note that I don’t care what the answer _is_, though feel free to give that too, just whether or not the question has a correct answer. If there are other considerations, feel free to explain!) 2) For the questions that don’t have yes-or-no answers, why don’t they and/or how would you rephrase them (if possible) to make them concretely answerable? Is the integral of sqrt(1-x^2) from -1 to 1 equal to π? Does every number have a square root that’s a number? If I run this program (presume a computer program that takes no input and only has text output is provided), will it output ‘6’? Will it rain in Seattle tomorrow? Would nationalized health care be legal? Would nationalized health care be constitutional? Would nationalized health care be good for the country? Would nationalized health care be good for me? (note: ‘me’ here and below is you!) Is Obama’s health care package legal? Is Obama’s health care package constitutional? Is Obama’s health care package good for the country? Is Obama’s health care package good for me? Is the detention of noncombatants in Guantanamo Bay legal? Is the detention of noncombatants in Guantanamo Bay constitutional? Is the detention of noncombatants in Guantanamo Bay good for the country? Is the detention of noncombatants in Guantanamo Bay good for me? Do electrons exist? Do complex numbers exist? I’m going to keep answers screened for a day or two to avoid any groupthink biasing the results (any more than just my selection of questions has biased the results!), but I’ll make them public soon enough, and offer my own thoughts on the matter in a followup in a few days. Thanks again for any thoughts you’re willing to offer! Current Mood: thoughtful (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, April 26th, 2010
9:06 am	Life in our home Me, listening to a bad dealership ad: "I don't want to know about Honda's 'Really Big Thing'!" Jeff, instantly and deadpan: "There's a reason he uses a hundred-hand slap" Me: "..." "..." *POKE* There's a lot of poking at our place. Err, as it were... Current Mood: giggly (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 21st, 2010
8:57 am	Olympic fever! So the three of us (quarrel, fushichou and myself) decided on shortish notice to come up to Vancouver and catch some chunk of the Olympics. So far the sports (a women's hockey game last night) have been interesting enough but sort of 'just-sports' — but the atmosphere around it all has been pretty awesome. I'll have a more thorough post with plenty of photos later, but it's not uncommon to see a Swiss flag being carried down the street by a half-dozen people, or to have random people striking a pose and screaming 'Woo Latvia'!. It really is an insane global party, and the people are all amazing. And the Canadian pride! I've never seen a sea of red-and-white like this. Y'all should be proud of yourselves. :-) Current Mood: pleased (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
6:53 pm	Car Repair Situation - Opinions Wanted A bit of background: for quite a while now (err, most of the last half-decade), the Check Engine light in my '98 Accord has been on. The car's run reasonably well over that time, so I assumed that the issue was the oxygen sensor: a known problem with the car, and one I've before, so I've been lax about fixing it. Usually it'll go off just in time for inspection, thankfully; but this year I needed to get my car smogged again and it wasn't shutting off, so I took the car in to have it looked at. My old repair shop (who I was very fond of) is inconveniently far away now, so I brought it in to a local shop that had really good online reviews. They took a look at it, told me it was the O2 sensor and the catalytic converter, and said they'd have it back to me that evening. So far, so good; I picked up the car that evening, turned it on... and proceeded to watch the light come on. I pointed this out to them and they looked suitably abashed, took the car back, and promised to look more closely into it. That was a month ago. In all fairness, there have been some valid reasons for the delay; apparently they got a federal rather than California-emissions O2 sensor the first time out and it took some time to get the correct one, and they ran into some serious issues with my vehicle's wiring and computer (and I think are replacing it if they can). Still... a month. One way or another, (I hope) I'm getting my car back from them in the next few days; obviously if they haven't got the problem fixed by then, then I'm not paying them a penny for the work. At this point they've already agreed to pay for the rental car I've had for the last week or so (which I should've thought to get earlier, but meh.) My question is, what other recompense is reasonable here, what should I be pushing them for? If they haven't fixed it by this point, should I expect them to pay for repairs done somewhere else? If they *have* fixed it, should I push to pay a reduced bill? I've never been in a situation quite like this; it's hard to fault them too much for the problems, and after all I *will* (again, I hope!) be getting my car back in working condition, but still... a month? Good grief. And I just don't know what not having my car for a month should be worth; I have no reasonably-objective means of valuing it. Any thoughts, any experience, from either side of this? At this point, I'd appreciate anything... Current Mood: annoyed (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
12:29 am	Why I'm kind of excited about the iPad (and why you might be too) Unless you've been actively hiding from any tech news — or arguably, any news at all — for the last couple of weeks, you've heard by now that Apple has come out with their long-speculated tablet, the iPad. So far, the predominant reaction I've seen from most of the gadgeteers I know, and from most of the geek press, has been a resounding 'meh'; it seems as though everyone is disappointed that what they've got isn't anything more than the hypothesized device that they've been getting worked up about over the last couple of weeks (or months, depending); but I have to say, I'm as interested in this as I've been in any piece of tech for a fair while, and I've been spending a lot of time today off and on thinking about why. In some ways, it's a credit to just how well Apple built their initial Touch interface that people find the iPad nothing revolutionary; people have been leveling 'like the iPhone, only bigger' at it as a complaint. But that's exactly the device I want! For so many of the interesting design applications for the Apple touch devices (and as an aside, there has to be a better group name for these; I hate to use iPhone when the phone element is the least interesting part, but it seems to be the device people think of even if there are as many iPod Touches out there), the biggest constraint by far has been a lack of screen real estate. Just having Apple's touch controls and enough space to use them is a bigger deal than I think people are giving it credit for. A few of the particular possibilities I've been pondering over the course of the day (and this is with just a few days' thinking about it): This should blow music boxes like Korg's Kaoss pads out of the water; the CPU should be good enough to do some serious on-the-fly mixing, and having it all in software means that you aren't stuck with just a single interface. It could be an MPC-style drum sequencer one moment, a Kaoss pad-style effects box the next, and you could even put two virtual turntables on it and use it for mixing and fading between tracks. It's going to be an insanely cool music toy. It may be the best platform for board gaming since the kitchen table. Most board games, from Chess to Monopoly to Settlers of Catan to Risk, map naturally onto the kind of grab-and-drag interface that the touch screen is perfect for, and the added screen space means that you can actually see most of the game (and for Chess-sized games, all of it) at once rather than having to pan a much smaller (virtual) window across the board or look at a much-reduced version the way you would on the iPhone. Card games (both CCGs and games like Poker or Bridge) are an even more natural fit, and much like there's been a boom in virtual-only CCGs I can easily imagine something similar happening for touch devices. I'm not sold on the pseudo-controller touch interfaces they've been plugging for playing FPSes and driving games and the like on the iPad, but there are definitely some genres that are all but made for the tablet; tactical strategy games (which are almost board games anyway) and RTS games are naturals. A handful of designers have tried doing RTS-likes on the iPhone, but the screen size radically affects your design; 1024x768, on the other hand, is a higher resolution than e.g. the original Command and Conquer ran on. There's plenty of space there for a full RTS, even with some fuzz in the touch controls. And then, looking beyond that, there's a world of control schemes that really aren't possible on anything but a touch device. You can't really have 'multi-window' twitch games (imagine, for example, something like a tower defence-style game with multiple views of the goings-on and the ability to control each of them independently) on a standard PC because mice aren't really absolute devices, they're relative; it's relatively easy to move a mouse up and right, say, under pressure, but much harder to move it to an absolute point hundreds of pixels away in either direction; this means that you can't flip back and forth between gameplay windows readily with a mouse. But on the touch screen it's all absolute positioning rather than relative, and suddenly that sort of thing becomes easy; and once again, on a device with this large a screen you've actually got the room for more than one display. I strongly suspect there's a lot more than this out there, too; I don't know what's coming, but as a game developer/designer I'm not sure I've ever been more interested in working on a new platform than I am in building games for this one; there's just that much to explore. And this doesn't even touch on the non-entertainment uses, be it the full-screen video (which I'll admit certainly isn't revolutionary) or educational applications or... well, the list goes on and on. So, yeah; I don't know if I'll be getting one right away, but aside from a host of minor gripes, this is the geek-toy I've been waiting to play with. Current Mood: creative (19 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 8th, 2010
12:12 am	100 Gaming Cupcakes! So ladyperegrine pointed me to the awesome 100 Games Cupcake Game. And I'm a little impressed and a little disturbed by how many I know: ( Looooong list after the cut - don't read if you want to try yourself! ) So all told, 85% — I'll take a solid B on this quiz. How'd you do? Current Mood: amused (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 1st, 2010
6:15 pm	Numerous, nevertheless, are the moralists who have attacked the machine as the source of all the ills we bear, who, creating a fictitious dichotomy, have denounced the mechanical civilization as the enemy of the spiritual civilization. [...] It is hard for me to understand the language of these pseudo-dreamers. What is it makes them think that the ploughshare torn from the bowels of the earth by perforating machines, forged, tempered, and sharpened in the roar of modern industry, is nearer to man than any other tool of steel? By what sign do they recognize the inhumanity of the machine? Have they ever really asked themselves this question? The central struggle of men has ever been to understand one another, to join together for the common weal. And it is this very thing that the machine helps them to do! It begins by annihilating time and space. To me, in France, a friend speaks from America. The energy that brings me his voice is born of dammed-up waters a thousand miles from where he sits. The energy I burn up in listening to him is dispensed in the same instant by a lake formed in the River Yser which, four thousand miles from him and five hundred from me, melts like snow in the action of the turbines. Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures—in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together. Do our dreamers hold that the invention of writing, of printing, of the sailing ship, degraded the human spirit? It seems to me that those who complain of man's progress confuse ends with means. True, that man who struggles in the unique hope of material gain will harvest nothing worth while. But how can anyone conceive that the machine is an end? It is a tool. As much a tool as is the plough. The microscope is a tool. What disservice do we do the life of the spirit when we analyze the universe through a tool created by the science of optics, or seek to bring together those who love one another and are parted in space? — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars Current Mood: pensive (Comment on this)
Friday, December 18th, 2009
8:53 am	Ahhh, the searches one does... Hey Google? 'xyzzysqrl "Manly Stench" site:livejournal.com' ? Yep, that's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you! [ N.B.: spoilers afoot. Don't read yet if you're currently watching! ] Current Mood: giggly (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 26th, 2009
11:09 am	Garden stuff! I've been meaning to get some photos from my little herb garden for a while now; I'm trying not to do much heavy-duty gardening until I can get a place of my own (although Stef planted a pretty good swath of vegetables), but the place we're in now had some perfect 4' x 4' boxes set up and I couldn't resist filling a few of them. Here, let me give you the tour... If you want to boost your self-esteem, grow mint. :-) This started as six little plants; I put three varieties in there, apple mint (which is a classic stalk/spear mint), chocolate mint (i.e., peppermint, a creeping variety), and orange mint (which is somewhere between the two; I don't really care for the flavor, which has a bit of the bitterness of orange rind to it). That stalk in the middle? Four and a half feet tall — at this point I'm just letting it grow to see how much bigger it gets. I feel almost sorry for the weeds in this box... It's even been trying to escape, nevermind that there's a couple of feet of brick tile between it and the next box over. Here you can see the orange mint creeping out in a sort of horizontal sneak towards one of our squash. I'm a little curious to see if it can make it between boxes without laying out roots into the brick; it's hard to tell from this photo, but it's not actually touching the ground there... Just a few miscellaneous herbs here: from left to right (or counterclockwise, if you prefer), there are a couple of varieties of oregano (which never caught as well as I'd have liked), some chives (which have been wonderful but which I don't use nearly enough; fortunately they don't seem to mind the neglect), and then some blue rosemary. More miscellaneous herbs: counter-clockwise from the left, there's some lime thyme (which never really took off), some 'traditional' thyme (which also isn't doing as well as I'd hope, but is delicious), variegated sage, pineapple sage (the flowers off of this are absolutely delicious — I'm tempted to try and pluck enough for an ice cream), and then sorrel — more a broadleaf than an herb, like spinach, but with a very nice tart flavor. Strawberries! These guys took so long to start flowering that I was starting to get worried, but they've really caught in earnest now, with at least a dozen flowers and fruit (yes, yes, I know...) on each plant. And here are the berries themselves! This varietal is actually supposed to produce white fruit; I'm really curious to see how it comes out, and crossing my fingers that I'll get enough fruit to do more than just nibble. And for that matter, crossing my fingers that I beat the birds and scavengers to them... And what goes with strawberries like basil? There are actually five different varieties here, although the 'lettuce-leaf' looks a lot like the sweet basil (and is mostly hiding behind it, just underneath the red opal in the middle of the left column). The other two are a thai basil (middle of the right column), and a 'variegated basil' that I'd never seen before (bottom of the right column). I should probably start harvesting these now that they're flowering, but I'm trying to hold out until I can get some tomatoes too and start making sauce... And here are my tomatoes! This is one of the 'black' varieties, a plum tomato from Russia that's supposed to have a slightly smoky flavor to it. I'm really hoping to get enough to make a sauce with, but so far there are only about a dozen fruits on this plant and there aren't even flowers yet on the other one I planted. Aren't they adorable? They grew pretty quickly at first, but they've been slowing down a bit lately; I don't know how much longer they have to ripen, but I'm really curious to taste how they turn out. For comparison, one of my sister's little cherry tomato plants. I think it's safe to say that we won't be lacking in *those* this year... Current Mood: productive (6 Comments |Comment on this)
12:35 am	For the last few days we've had a raccoon hanging around our house; Stef first noticed it parked on a branch of our cherry tree a few days ago, casually watching her while she gardened, and then I was lucky enough to catch it Thursday night when I got home from work, sitting at the back of the driveway watching me with remarkable nonchalance as I pulled in and got out of the car. I was a little surprised this evening when I heard growling from the side walkway just as I was coming up to the door, and concerned to see the raccoon growling at me from maybe 20 feet away. It got a lot more understandable, mind, when I realized that she had her kids with her... Current Mood: d'awwww... (Comment on this)
Monday, July 20th, 2009
8:59 am	More coolness from the world of gaming I found William and Sly, a beautiful little platformer-ish exploration thing that has you playing a small fox, yesterday via the IndieGames blog; the play isn't necessarily that deep, but it's still engaging while being remarkably relaxing, and the art is absolutely beautiful; there's just a hint of mystery, enough to suggest some real depth to the world. The boss battle that ends it (after an hour or two's worth of exploration) is a little frustrating (okay, more than a little frustrating), but there's no real risk to it, so it doesn't feel as annoying as it might otherwise having to keep trying at it. I can't recommend this highly enough for most of the folks on my friends' list, if only for prurient vulpine reasons — check it out, for sure. Current Mood: impressed (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, July 17th, 2009
8:46 am	Awesome game news Sadly, no, not on any of my projects (yet). :-) It's still pretty damn cool, though: a new trailer for Michel Gagné's upcoming game. It's absolutely amazing how well his style animates — Well worth the checking-out. Current Mood: impressed (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
11:58 pm	I literally don't remember when I first met tugrik; it's been at least 15 years now, and probably closer to 20. It says a lot about him (and a bit about me, I suppose) that in a lot of ways, it really doesn't stand out for me; he's just Been There, consistently, since right around when I first moved to California, even if he hadn't quite figured out yet that he was a Californian himself. :-) And that's the thing: he's always been there. tugrik has a knack for finding ways to contribute, to help fill in other people's needs, and to do whatever needs to be done to turn folks' projects into a reality — including his own, of course. And somehow he manages to do it without calling attention to the fact that he's doing it. It's not a false modesty, there's no 'awww-shucks' about it; it's just Who He Is, it's his essential nature, and so I think he never really stops to think about it. And yet — keeping FurryMUCK running smoothly (and have no doubts that it has run smoothly; things have been much better at furry.com/Belfry than at any of our previous sites, by far) for the last 10+ years has really been among the least of his accomplishments. You may or may not remember, but he's a published author; builds things like satellite trackers for fun; randomly helps out building things like Gristleizers for friends... and so on. When Team Grey Goo ran our puzzle event this spring, it wouldn't have been nearly so impressive without his assistance; even with deadlines being unexpectedly short and with source material shifting regularly under him, he still managed to turn in awesome work in plenty of time, and the physical puzzle he manufactured for us was one of the event's highlights with everyone. And then he runs photography for pretty much every con he has a chance to, creates prints (and much more complicated media, for that matter) for artists and other creatives just to give their work its best showing... takes care of sick cats... and this is STILL all just the tip of the iceberg (seriously -- I've edited this post three times now to add more). I'm flatly agog at just how much he gets done, how much he does, and how effortlessly he seems to do it all. He's not exactly an inspiration — I can hardly even imagine aspiring to the sheer volume of projects that he manages to tackle — but in a lot of ways, he's a role model, a shining example of just how much can be accomplished by the truly determined, and what a little effort (okay, a lot of effort) can get you. And he doesn't get to hear how awesome he is nearly often enough. A wonderful, happy (and not yet belated!) birthday to tugrik. Current Mood: impressed (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, May 1st, 2009
11:43 pm	I have committed poetry... No, really, that's the right phrasing. My first offering for this year's napoewrimo; apologies in advance... Hooray, Hooray, the first of May A holiday satyric A fine start to a month's display Of poetry and lyric Here's to our writers new and old And all the in-betweeners May we all flaunt our verses bold And not just flash our wieners! Current Mood: mischievous (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 19th, 2009
7:45 pm	I've just proven that a particular (15-puzzle style) block-sliding puzzle is impossible. This would be a lot cooler if I weren't trying to use it for an actual physical puzzle. Bah. *grump* Current Mood: amused (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 16th, 2009
9:08 pm	Looking for Seattle-area volunteers this Saturday! Hey, local people reading this! Are you free this Saturday? Would you like to help a group of crazy puzzlers torment roughly 40 other groups of crazy puzzlers? Can you get to Pioneer Square? Come join us and help us run SNAP 5! We're looking for people to help us run a few of the locations that we'll be using for the game -- a smartphone is a plus, but not necessary; all you'll really need is to be able to hand puzzles off to people, take answers and tell teams if they're right (or wrong), and help direct them to the next location -- and we'll explain all of the above to you day-of. If you think you can help, please drop me a line here and let me know; it'd be greatly appreciated. Thank you!! Current Mood: busy (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
10:12 pm	5 More Things... ...this set for tracerj, even later. Bah! 1. Videogames As Art I'm a big proponent, no surprise; in fact, the burgeoning acceptance of artgames, and the commercial inroads they're starting to make, is one of my brightest signs for the medium. I actually don't play as many 'art games' as I ought, or probably as I'd like; it's at least partly a function of time, of course, as it's hard to devote myself to everything I want to; but at the same time, I think there's a little concern about giving myself too much to them, of overdosing at some level on them, in the same way that it's hard to read too much of a really emotionally affecting story, or to watch a particularly intense film. And I suppose I should give a list, hmmm? Right now, my top five would have to be Flower, Gravitation, Braid, Okami (well, the first 3/4ths of it), and... mmm, probably Rez, in roughly that order. There are other fine candidates — I'd add Ico to the list, for sure, and a couple of others — but those are the ones that really call to me right now. 2. Experimental Cooking There are a couple of distinct aspects to this, and I'm not sure which you mean, so... I'm going to hit both. :-) I have a fascination with Molecular Gastronomy — the sort of cutting-edge, science-enhanced cooking that seems to be all the rage lately — but I haven't actually ever sampled; there really aren't any restaurants in Seattle that go full-bore MG, but there are places I really want to get to that dip into it a bit. It's a neat notion, and while it can definitely be gimmicky, in the end the intent is just to make food even better — and I can wholly get behind that. If you mean 'experimenting with recipes', well... yeah. *chuckle* My curse and blessing is that (with rare exceptions) I just can't seem to fix any recipe straight up; I always need to change the spicing, swap out one vegetable (or meat) for another, etc etc... the cauliflower soup recipe I have used apple, but fennel worked much better for me; that sort of thing. It lets me feel like I'm creating rather than just following orders, and that really makes a huge difference for me. I don't know how much I can really say I've learned by my experimenting, other than how to make some awfully good food — but that counts for a lot in and of itself... 3. La Valese d'Eugenie I think what first drew me in was the little crackle of the record player; it's such a small touch, but it's perfectly executed, and the track as a whole is a beautiful fit into the album, a little palate-cleanser to recharge before diving into the album's last few tracks. It's not my favorite song on the album ("Moonbeam" probably holds that honor, though it bounces about the entire album depending on my mood), but the album wouldn't be the same without it. 4. FurryMUCK ...can you be a little more specific? :-) Seriously, it's obviously hard for me to be too objective about the MUCK, for obvious reasons; still, I think the thing that most stands out for me is just how long it's been going, and how steadily. It's had its share of drama, to be sure, and there are still occasional flare-ups — but to realize that it's been running for almost twenty years now, that there are people on the MUCK who literally weren't born when it started... that part still astounds me. 5. Insane aptitude at word puzzles I'm not sure I know what you're talking about. :-) I think a lot of it is the 'someone better' phenomenon; I'm good at word puzzles, in some cases very good — but there's pretty incontrovertible evidence that there are a lot of people better than I am, whether it's PuzzleHunt-style word puzzles, or Scrabble, or heck, even Boggle. That said — I think a lot of it comes from having a strangely-indexed memory, and a lot of that may come from having done a lot of this when I was younger; I have a pretty good recollection of word patterns, and probably some unconscious mnemonics that make it that much easier to remember. I've actually noticed some of this — the patterns particularly — when playing Boggle; I tend to find particularly fertile prefixes or endings (e.g., 'ENT' at the end of a word, or 'ST' at the start) and just start hooking those together, or seeing what else they hook into. It gets me a lot of words, but also means I can miss words like 'STOIC' or even 'JAW' that just don't fit into convenient patterns. Bonus: "If you could be any kind of character in any sort of animated feature, what would you be and why?" I've been gnawing at this one for a long time, and come up wholly short on good answers, so I'm going to fall back onto the weird and say "one of the hyperbolic dodecahedra in Not Knot." You heard it here first. :-) Current Mood: meme-y (7 Comments |Comment on this)