George Budd @Gbudd@qoto.org

I have the best conversations with my mom. I try my best at a translation of the call I just had with her:

phone ringing
Me: Hello m...
Her: Eʟᴅᴇʀ Sᴘᴀᴡɴ.
Me: ...
Me: Yᴇs Gʀᴀɴᴅ Mᴀᴛʀɪᴀʀᴄʜ.
Her: I sʜᴀʟʟ sᴜᴍᴍᴏɴ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ᴘᴀʀᴛᴀᴋᴇ ɪɴ ꜰᴇᴀsᴛɪɴɢ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ sᴀᴄʀɪꜰɪᴄᴇs ʟᴀɪᴅ ʙᴇꜰᴏʀᴇ ᴜs ᴛʜɪs ᴅᴀʏ ᴏꜰ sᴜɴ. Wɪʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴇᴇᴅ ᴍʏ sᴜᴍᴍᴏɴs?
Me: checks calendar
Me: Tʜᴇ sᴛᴀʀs ᴀʟɪɢɴ, ɴᴏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ɢʀᴇᴀᴛ ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀ. I sʜᴀʟʟ ᴍᴀɴɪꜰᴇsᴛ ɪɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴄᴏᴜʀᴛ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ 12ᴛʜ ʜᴏᴜʀ ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ sᴜɴ ʙᴇʟɪᴇᴠᴇs ɪᴛsᴇʟꜰ ɪɴᴠɪɴᴄɪʙʟᴇ.
Her: Tʜᴜs ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀᴅs ᴀʀᴇ sᴘᴏᴋᴇɴ, ᴛʜᴜs ɪᴛ sʜᴀʟʟ ʜᴀᴘᴘᴇɴ.
Me: Great, see you on sunday.
Her: Try to be punctual.

I always refer to her when people ask me "why are you like this?".

Six minutes well spent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evi_i7R0SFQ

IT in a nutshell 😂

The trick to drawing hands, is you just draw lots, and lots and lots of them. Ten a day for a year. Then you can just draw whatever hand you want.

Also:

#Art #artists #drawing #SomethingISuckAt

The tritone - the dissonant sound halfway between any sound and the one that vibrates twice as fast - is sometimes called "diabolus in musica". Yes: THE DEVIL IN MUSIC! 😈

Believe it or not, this devil also afflicts modern data storage. But first: there's a lot of misinformation about the tritone. Was it really banned in the Middle Ages? Adam Neely's great video here clears it up. It goes into a lot of detail. But not enough detail for me!

As I studied just intonation in Renaissance music - where frequency ratios should be simple fractions built by multiplying and dividing the numbers 2, 3, and 5 - I realized that the tritone is DEVILISHLY DIFFICULT for this system!

You see, the tritone vibrates with a frequency of √2 ≈ 1.414 times that of the sound it's sitting over. This number is not only irrational - making Pythagoras turn in his grave - there are also four competing ways to approximate it in just intonation:

25/18 ≈ 1.38888
45/32 ≈ 1.40625
64/45 ≈ 1.42222
36/25 = 1.44

And the ratios of these frequencies vexed early music theorists so much they all have their own individual names!

For example,

(36/25)/(45/32) = 128/125 = 2⁷/3³

is called the 'lesser diesis'. This number shows up automatically when you try to approximate powers of 5 by powers of 2. But notice:

128/125 = 1024/1000

also shows up when you try to approximate powers of 10 by powers of 2. For example, when we talk about a kilobyte, we usually don't mean 1000 bytes - we usually mean 1024. So we're a bit off! And our error is the "lesser diesis" - a number discovered in the Renaissance, or even earlier, by musicians fighting the devil in music.

(1/2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR5yzCH5CsM

Netanyahu reiterating today that no aid workers will enter Gaza until all hostages are released. Collective punishment of the civilian populace is a war crime. Period.

Once again, the sound of scientific discovery isn't "eureka!" it's "WTF?"

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/lucy/nasas-lucy-surprises-again-observes-1st-ever-contact-binary-orbiting-asteroid/

@vlrny @sentientmortal @melivia

I often really wonder if many of the people who shout about Jesus the most have really looked at what the story says.

You know, the main point of the whole thing.

They all seem so lost in minutiae. The idea of trying to be, even just a little, "Christ-like" is a big challenge. It's obviously beyond what most of us can do.

But, I guess I hold on to that idea-- to "love thy neighbor" isn't a trivial thing at all. Not if you really think about what that means

Get ready!

I blame Gene Wilder for people looking at me funny when I use words like abbysorbent and abbysolute and abbynormal.

Throwback to the greatest Venn Diagram ever created to celebrate #NoVENNber

Every argument about undefined behavior in a nutshell

He means the world to me

NPR’s data shows that they lost nothing after being ostracized by the psychotic white billionaire. It counters the idea that leaving Twitter is a loss. Let’s dismiss the idea that we need to be held hostage on any platform.

https://niemanreports.org/articles/npr-twitter-musk/

#NPR #Twitter #SocialMedia #Journalism #Media

Oh yeah, here's the sideboard I'm working on. It's gonna sit between the couch and wall, with storage slots for oversized flat items in front. On top it'll have several segmented panels, each of which opens to reveal two tiers of storage. Blankets and big stuff below, remotes and trinkets above. #woodworking

Bingus 2024 🇺🇸 #caturday #catsofmastodon

NASA is sending a software update to the Voyager 2 spacecraft today!

Data will be sent at 16 bps with a 19 kW transmitter using the 70-m dish at DSN Canberra.
Distance: 20 billion km
Light travel time: 18:40 hours

The patch contains logic to recover from glitches similar to the one in May 2022, when the AACS system on Voyager 1 was sending garbled data. The root cause was not diagnosed. The patch will be activated on Oct 28. Voyager 2 will be next.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-voyager-team-focuses-on-software-patch-thrusters
#Voyager
1/n

When you're in a dystopic society but you're just resigned to it, that's Ohwellian.