Still hanging in there apparently - we made it to 100 blogposts this year without incidents. Taking care of some bidness today, please enjoy this preview of the t-shirts for the Embodied Artificial Intelligence Workshop. Still trying out suppliers - the printing on this one came out grey rather than white.
Perhaps we should go whole hog and use the logo for the workshop proper, which came out rather nice.
-the Centaur
Picture: Um, I said it, a prototype t-shirt for EAI#5, and the logo for EAI#5.
So I don't completely burn out on arms and legs, I'm building out my buffer with sketches based on a completely different anatomy book, which has very good planar breakdowns to help analyze shapes:
Well, I guess you can't see it well in that view because I put a clear plastic library-style cover over the book to protect it, but I also guess you'll start seeing more closeups from this book as we move forward, so you'll get the gist eventually.
No, this isn't an April Fool's joke: I'm the Author Guest of Honor at Clockwork Alchemy 2024! In recognition of my steampunk novel and many steampunk stories, my long association with Clockwork Alchemy, and the fact that they were not able to chase me away (even with a broom), the Clockwork folks have honored me with even more programming than normal! More seriously, though, there will be an author tea, presentations on neurodiversity, an audio reading of Jeremiah Willstone and the Choir of Demons, and even the obligatory airships panel (though this year it will be a more general panel on steampunk vehicles).
Actually, it will become tabbouleh, vegan kibbey nayye, tomato sandwiches, crazy susan salad, and maybe burger garnishment.
But the principle stands: I am creating some buffer, as I had before GDC, in case Easter goes kazoo. So, please enjoy this variety of tomatoes (heirloom NC, heirloom Mexico, on-the-vine stripped of the vine, and conventional slicers).
Ran out of time to postprocess this due to prepping for Easter dinner.
Actually, I got kicked out of the library because Loki is already having his midnight snack prior to going to bed, and it is best not to (literally) open the door to another round of zoomies. The mobile studio to the rescue!
... he's just going to survey it from the safety of the inside.
Lots of work on Embodied AI #5 and Clockwork Alchemy and the Neurodiversiverse, more tomorrow. Until then, please enjoy the above pictures of a cat.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Loki, who for some reason wants to look out the window on the opposite side of the room - perhaps because there's more activity out in the trees than in the little courtyard behind him. Also behind him, a sofa modified by my wife Sandi, and one of her paintings.
More practice from Foster's book. I was shy on time, so I didn't start with the proportions diagram, but with the parts diagram, and therefore the proportions of my parts are a bit off. But, it's a step.
So, day 3 begins! The con is going swimmingly: there are lots of people, everyone seems happy, the organizers feel it's going well, and I sold all my number ones! Even on Easter Sunday, people are still showing up!
[still busy at the author's alley]
Yesterday evening after panels were done, I chilled at the bar, worked on SPECTRAL IRON, struck up a conversation with a writer who saw me writing and had a lot of questions about getting back into the game. (Talk about doing the right thing putting you into the right places!), and still had time to catch the end of the Lee Presson and the Nails concert!
[lee as the easter bunny]
All in all Clockwork Alchemy appears to be a success. Here's hoping we do it again!
-the Centaur
P.S. Almost forgot: at 2pm I will be on the panel for "Getting Past Chapter One" to help writers overcome their creative barriers!
Now, I don't think we live in a simulation (except I have strong evidence that we do - ask me know I know) but I do believe in providence, that idea that God is trying to arrange things in the world in a way that works out for us. And I think we can see providence (or the simulation, or synchronicity, or simple pareidolia) most clearly when we are where we need to be, for then things somehow all just work out.
Like, how, day before yesterday I decided to drop by a nearby coffeehouse after brunch, and stayed there until I finished beta reading a book; that put me at the right place to give some spare cash to an apparently homeless man, who looked like he needed it and promised he'd go buy food. Then I decided to grab a soda on the way out of town, which put me in just the right place to see the same homeless man try to buy alcohol. I need that reminder - that most of the time helping the beggar isn't actually helping - but still, Jesus says to give to all those who beg from you, and another errand placed me right where I needed to be to help another person. I hope they did something good for themselves with it, whatever it was.
Later that night I worked through another problem, planning to eat a light midnight snack instead of dinner, until, frustrated, I threw up my hands and went to grab dinner at BJ's brewery. That cleared my head, gave me the opportunity to run a few more errands, and I even got some writing done.
Seeking the good can help you find more of it. So I try to pay attention to what I was doing when things just seem to work out, so I can hopefully make more of the same choices in the future. Which, coincidentally, is what I was reading about over brunch today: a book on the Thomistic philosophy of free will, which has nothing to do with woo-hoo non-causal "free choices" and everything to do about building up the right resources within ourselves to make the right decision when the time comes.
So pay attention to providence: it may be trying to tell you something about how aligned you are with what you should have been doing in the first place.
-the Centaur
Pictured: fish and shrimp tacos at BJ's, and another chapter read of a deep RL book.
that's one small area of uprooted grass, one giant leap towards saving the succulents
Even though it can be backbreaking, there's something strangely satisfying about getting out of your conditioned environment and into "nature", just kneeling there listening to the winds blowing, the birds chirping, and dogs barking as you pull weedgrass out of your yard before it kills all your succulents. Because the succulents will survive and look nice come the next drought, but this kind of hill grass will turn to dead but pointy weeds with barbed seeds so sharp they actually gave one of our cats a bloody nose.
weeds in a wheelbarrow
A lot of work left to do, but it was a productive day.
-the Centaur
Pictured: One of the areas I cleared today trying to rescue our succulents, and the integrated sum of all of today's work, prior to being dumped on the compost pile.
... I miss the glory days when you were open until 10 (and Bookbuyers was open to midnight, just up the street) but you're still a great place to grab a mocha, get together with techy friends, and work on a project.
What's amazing about the Bay Area is how much technology is just milling around in the ether. I practically tripped on a robot on the way to the meeting, some people at a nearby table were talking about self-driving cars, day before yesterday the people next to me were talking about robots, reinforcement learning and my colleagues, and I ran into three techy friends, one of whom introduced me to some more robot folk.
Well, it looks like the way WordPress is going to pull the Classic Editor out of my cold, dead hands is to screw up the formatting of any post published with the Classic Editor. The only way it seems to get posts to appear correctly in the blog roll is to use the new Gutenberg garbage. I will be updating posts a few at a time to try to overcome this. The problem is only "new" Classic Editor posts ... the older content in the blog doesn't appear to be affected, so hopefully it won't take too long if I update a few a day.
