John BS @johnabs@qoto.org

Does anyone else feel alienated in their own culture? I often feel like a foreigner in my own country, and have felt more at home abroad, which isn't my favorite thing to deal with.

A project well outside my comfort zone that I did for a class is going through peer review!

Inspired by my lovely wife, and my own fascination with optimizing workflows, a collaborator and I performed a comprehensive literature survey to determine what work has been done using brain/human computer interfaces and neuroergonomic frameworks to improve design inclusivity for neurodivergent individuals.

Once it's published, I'll share a link here, after all I probably shouldn't be posting spoilers before it's accepted ;)

Actually, here's a way better pic thanks to my wife's camera.

Here's the buckeye burl one! The best of the bunch IMO.

I've been making pens! Here are three I turned on my mini lathe recently, the woods are (from left to right)

Bolivian Rosewood
Cocobolo
Macassar Ebony
(Buckeye burl in the works, it's gorgeous)

Each one is made with different embellishments, slightly different widths and grips, and an increasingly refined process as I make more!

The refills are by Cross, and if I can find kits for fountain pens, I'll definitely want to try my hand at making those too! These are really hefty and dense and have great balance to them, so I'm pretty happy with how they all turned out!

Quick rant:

Clarity of writing should not be mistaken for simplicity of the ideas being expressed through the writing. It takes a LOT of work to explain difficult topics clearly and concisely, and I think that extra work should (ideally) be rewarded or encouraged in academic publishing as well.

Unfortunately, obtuse, clunky, and unclear writing is common in modern scientific literature. I'm at least partially convinced it's used as both a shibboleth, and to make sub-par ideas look better in a manner similar to "putting lipstick on a pig".

Don't get me wrong; precise, well-reasoned writing is absolutely critical. But precision does not necessitate prose that beats you with passive voice, nested appositive phrases with no delimiter differentiation, and frankly disgusting style.

As an added benefit, you may be able to increase popular scientific literacy of your field if you manage to write your papers in a way that doesn't require a master's degree in linguistics with a focus on cuneiform and Latin to parse.

Related comic:
https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=2049

Should all critical cyber infrastructure be written in languages that seek to guarantee safety, such as Haskell or Rust?

So I got a lathe, and I made this! (not the wood part, but I'm working on it) It's a Paua Abalone shell inlay into a size 10 wooden ring blank. Polished up to 12000 grit, and while the images don't exactly catch the opalescence, I'm very proud of my first attempt

I replaced 4 (non functional and super annoying) ceiling fans this week and set them up with home assistant and smart z-wave switches so I can monitor their state and help control them from our phones without all the data harvesting.

I absolutely LOVE this improvement and the automations, and it makes wiring 3-way switches a breeze, since you don't need the common wire anymore! And even if the network goes down for whatever reason, I can still use the switches as normal.

Now if I could only find a thermostat with z-wave capabilities so I don't have to use any google products...that would be sick.

So Windows decided to "update" when I was in the middle of a 20hr simulation....Whoever decided this can happen without your consent needs to be drawn and quartered.

I'm not a great artist, so someone else will have to draw them, but I can go to the bank and get 100$ in quarters.

Does anyone else get annoyed when people refer to atomically thick monolayers as "2-D". Clearly these materials have a non-zero thickness; who decided this was a good idea and why?!

My dog is finally settling in, and isn't unmanageable anymore!
Our lawn is finally mowed!
Our house is mostly clean!
My courses are almost finished!
Manuscripts are coming along and they look super promising!
I am finally about to take a 3 week vacation!!!
I JUST NEED THIS SEMESTER TO END ALREADY SO I CAN FINALLY CHILL

P.S.
Speaking of, here be the pooch. Look upon her dreaming visage and despair, for she is beautiful.

Not sure but it appears as though I've got some stressed induced balding occurring...I just hope it goes back to normal after the stress goes down, or I may need to shave my head.😢

I didn't realize how bad it was until I saw a comparison between last month and this month that I just so happened to have from recordings of my dog. This semester has just been hell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F9gzQz1Pms

So I've been considering building a distributed, open-access, peer reviewed journal. Anyone interested in helping out?

So windows 11 is garbage, but I'm stuck using it (for the moment) until I know I can reliably play games (Elden Ring etc.) on my new rig with linux.

It's sad when my Thinkpad T420 with arch Linux can run circles around my beefy new desktop when it comes to web-based stuff solely because windows is so bad. I legitimately cannot believe it is the default OS on so many machines and produced by a multi-billion dollar company. It's pathetic, and the devs/company should be ashamed of themselves.

I heavily suggest giving this a read, and I'd love to hear anyone's take on it. I think this article is pretty much on point, and that worries me greatly.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/

Can anyone explain to me why I cannot bike through a drive through to get my food? No wonder this country is so morbidly obese: we actively penalize people for trying to accomplish basic tasks in a way that doesn't guzzle gas like a frat party guzzles kegs. This is ridiculous.

"I am silent, save the soft clack of my keyboard. I ponder deeply over the current quandary; progress has been slow of late, and late it is indeed.

Drip, rumble: the sounds of rain outside my window softly caress the ragged corners of my mind with the temptation of a dark, warm shower to cut off the assault on my senses. I know even in my damp solitude I cannot escape my yoke, for my mind continues to pull it.

Piano notes flit gently like moths drawn to my ears. They hit their targets with unexpected force, each chord jolting my fraying psyche into focus anew, if only for a brief moment. I continue working as I have done all day: beyond my limit.

Thoughts of sleep haunt me, the desire for true repose I don't believe will come; only a poor facsimile which provides barely enough to complete another day.

'Why?'

The question echoes in my mind. After hours of staring at a blinking cursor, and countless error messages, I fail to steel myself into action. I am finally still.

After what seems like both an instant and eternity, I decide rest may prove more fruitful, and head to sleep. Before my drift into that all too temporary bliss, I pray I will finally awaken with renewed vitality."

--My life right now 😩 😭

I just realized, this May will mark the 10 year anniversary of me starting my career as a researcher, and will be 10 years since my trip to Taiwan to work on my first research project.

I've learned a lot since then, but I still love what I do.