Day 54 of Project 365: sunbather
Zen was born in Alabama, so she loves the sun and warmth. I was worried about how she would transition to Scotland’s climate. With the new couch in the window, she is doing just fine. She also enjoys sprawling out on the part of the kitchen floor directly over the hot-water pipe. And when she sits by the radiator, she shoves her head up underneath it so far that we call it “cookin’ the brains.” I know that pet owners have a tendency to anthropomorphize. Personally, I find it very difficult to think of Zen as “just a cat” when she gives me looks like this one. I give her a look like this right back, of course, with my heart all sqwudgy. She will be fifteen this...
Read MoreBad parenting.
To sum up the Zen situation: she seems to be feeling much better tonight. She has been suffering since Monday of lethargy, vomiting, diarrhea, and loss of appetite, and she vomited twice this morning even though she hadn’t eaten much last night, so it was time to take her to the vet. The trip to the vet was as exciting as ever. Zen is perfectly happy to go into her carrier and be lugged anywhere in the world. She is somewhat less happy to be outside of her carrier at the vet’s. I never, ever want to hear Zen like that. Basically, it sounds like someone is skinning her alive. She screams and hisses and tries to claw anyone who gets near her. The vet tech had to wrap her in a towel and was wearing serious-looking protective gloves while she did it. Zen...
Read Moreto bed and to rise
Every night, Torgi the cat puts me to bed by chirping and nudging me until I stop doing whatever I am doing. Every morning, he head-butts me into consciousness because it is time for his breakfast. Zen, in contrast, cannot be bothered. Her whims are her own, not to be shared with silly humans. Right now Torgi is purring loudly while attempting to wedge himself in between me and my iPhone. He is winning.
Read Moregrateful for zen
No, this is not an entry about Buddhism. I am grateful for my not-so-small and not-so-normal cat, Zen. Zen turned 11 this year, which is hard for me to imagine, as it seemed like just yesterday I was adopting a tiny runt with gigantic headlight eyes. Zen is having a difficult time with the recent move. She has never lived with another cat before, aside from her litter-mates way back when, and I believe her poor eyesight is adding to her insecurity because she cannot track Torgi’s movements very well. Regardless, our little family persists, and I am hopeful that in a few more months we will all be adjusted to the new living arrangements. Zen is round like a little football, and still very strange, and she is devoted to me. When I am sad or lost, she is...
Read Morein which I confide in you that my workweek has sucked
I felt pretty confident that, bolstered by the chill-out of the three-day weekend, I could handle whatever came next. After all, the MSG and I had spent most of the weekend sequestered inside his house, making and eating marvelous food, chatting, seeing movies, snuggling, and playing “Star Wars: Galaxies” — on which I am now totally hooked, thanks to him. I have a female wookiee character who breakdances and is training to be a martial artist. How cool is that? I love that Jedi are so rare in the game. The MSG actually saw one wielding a light saber a few weeks ago and told me all about it and I just started bouncing in excitement. Wanna see! And so, Monday evening, after a lovely meal of take-out from Eliza’s, the MSG and I sat...
Read MoreNestcam
The cam was last on Friday, May 4.
Hello What
I am Halsted, a/k/a cygnoir, and I do stuff with words.
My favourite things to do with words are keeping this diary, writing stories, and organising information.
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A great idea with an impressive scope. I’ll be watching this closely. (h/t @FunkyPlaid)
LibraryThing’s Edible Books contest winner. The rest are wonderful, too. (h/t @FunkyPlaid)
Digital archivists: technological custodians of human history
Digital archivists should read this Ars Technica article, via infoneer-pulse:
Game creator Jordan Mechner wanted to teach the next generation. So the man behind the groundbreaking 1989 Apple II game Prince of Persia recently posted his original 6052 assembly source code to Github. But getting the code from decades-old floppy disks “covered with dust” was no simple task. Mechner employed the services of vintage computer expert Tony Diaz and digital archivist Jason Scott to extract the bits from the floppies and assemble it into a readable code file.
Without Diaz and Scott, Mechner’s code could’ve been lost forever. The exact methods he used to create this landmark game would have become as obsolete as the 1976 technology it was played on.
But old source code isn’t the only cultural artifact that requires specialized knowledge to preserve. As paper and dyes deteriorate, acetate degenerates, and the minute magnetic flux recorded in analog tape fades with the ages, how do we preserve cultural artifacts like photographs, music, and film? And what of more modern digitally created media? Images and video are shot directly in digital formats and stored on flash media. Music is recorded in 24-bit, 192kHz digital resolution onto massive hard drives. All these files exist in various codecs, formats, and file systems; on spinning magnetic platters or in solid state NAND flash. How do we preserve these files for future reference, study, and appreciation?
» via ars technica
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