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[twenty twenty six day one seven two]: general relativity is hard

Published June 21, 2026 by centaur
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I'm sure this is obvious to most people who are not dumb that the key discovery of the person known as the world's greatest smarty pants might be a difficult subject, but I apparently have the dumb. I have been studying general relativity ("Einstein gravity") on and off, for twenty years, and while I get some of it, other parts still just keep breaking my head.

Like, why does time slow down when you accelerate? That's, like, almost THE key prediction of GR. The explanation seems so simple, but yet, when I try to work through the links of the chain, I just can't get it. I read the words and then try to recreate it in my little black grid-ruled notebook and end up right where I started, asking the question, "What does baffled mean?"

The current attempt involves having literally about a half-dozen books that have useful-seeming explanations of gravitational time dilation, which I am going through in quasi-parallel, trying to get a grip on the key feature which just doesn't make sense to me (why particles emitted in the roof of a rocket or elevator seem to "run fast" compared to an observer sitting on the floor).

I feel if I could just get this, then I'd have a much deeper understanding. But the understanding I do have gives me two wrong answers: one, it shouldn't work at all, or two, it's always been there in the equations, and Newton should have discovered it, but simply didn't because he didn't think of it.

Hopefully I'll get there. Wish me luck.

-the Centaur

Pictured: pound cake, almond milk, two general relativity textbooks, and buried between them the little black notebook where I'm trying to work all this out. Thanks, Albert.

[twenty twenty six day one seven one]: functionally weeds

Published June 20, 2026 by centaur
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So in our mushroom farm, some of the logs are producing shiitake mushrooms, some are producing oyster mushrooms (not pictured as something ate the latest buds), some produced nameko (which I was not fond of), there was a fourth variety that didn't come up, and I think we have recently buried some maitake mushrooms logs which won't come up for a few months.

But that doesn't stop other organisms from trying to colonize the logs.

On the right is I believe turkey tail, which some people make into a tea (if it's the right variety) but which we don't eat (and didn't plant, so I don't trust it). On the left is allegedly not a mushroom, but a giant false-puffball slime mold. I did not cut it open to find out.

I believe these are chicken of the woods on the lower center, and possibly another slime mold atop. Again, this isn't what we planted in this log, so we're not going to risk eating them (at least not until we are much, much better at identifying species, which will take a long, long time).

On some of these colonized logs, we can see clear signs that the shiitake mycelium is still colonizing the logs, so we'll give it time. After a year, however, we might pull some of the logs if they are not producing (normally it takes six months to start to fruit, but we're deliberately experimenting with much larger logs, hoping to pay a longer onset to get a longer producing period).

We'll see.

-the Centaur

[twenty twenty six day one seven zero]: again with the helping

Published June 19, 2026 by centaur
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And today's edition (well, not today's, as I blog a little ahead) of cats on workspaces includes Lily I think, bringing one of her favorite balls to one of my favorite workstations, a high-topped bar table made by my wife to look like a giant coral. Enjoy! I will work elsewhere.

-the Centaur

[twenty twenty six day one six nine]: i checked myself

Published June 18, 2026 by centaur
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Back in 1997, I drove across country for HAL 9000's birthday (yes, THAT Hal), held at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where a friend was a graduate student. They called it the Cyberfest, and Arthur C. Clarke joined us for the first transatlantic video call at 1 frame per second.

But on the drive, I recall watching the time zones change around me. I calculated how many degrees across the Earth I had driven ... and the shift in time due to the curve around the Earth matched up.

No, it's not flat, and you cannot fake reality in any way whatsoever.

-the Centaur

Pictured: an Old Fashioned at the One Five, where we had a nice vegan meal after my urgent care visit for my broken toe.

[drawing every day 2026 day zero zero one]: the back

Published June 17, 2026 by centaur
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Unblogged torso study from day 1 of this year. Well, actually, this was drawn in September, since I draw pretty far ahead; but it's the drawing scheduled for January 1st.

Drawing every day, on average, backfilling missed posts, when I can.

-the Centaur

[twenty twenty six day one six eight]: anatomy of the toe

Published June 17, 2026 by centaur
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It may not look like much, but it smarts where it counts, kid. One of our coffee tables decided to make some special modifications to my middle toe, including a lot of soft-tissue soreness and a tiny chip in the bone which took four X-rays to fully figure out. Flat-bottomed shoes make the world go round ...

-the Centaur

Pictured: Broken right ... there.

[twenty twenty six day one six seven]: adult me, bro

Published June 16, 2026 by centaur
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Adulting is one of the most important, and pernicious, tasks adults are called upon to undertake. The laundry must get done, after all, but if it's a choice between doing the laundry and maintaining your marriage or caring for your children or loved ones, the hamper can just continue to fill.

In this case, adulting is rather simple. My wife and I use the "80-80" rule: a partnership is not a 50-50 proposition, because we're rarely operating at 100% of our capacity. Even if your partner is awesome and pulls off a 90% success rate, if you rely on your partner to do half the work, inevitably that truly awesome partner will only deliver 45% of the needed work, falling short of your expectations.

If, instead, you ASSUME your partner will sometimes fall short, and take on MORE than 50% of the effort - and they do too - then everything is fine. Your partner's turn to toss the compost on the heap, but you're standing in front of it? Toss it. Your turn to fold the laundry, but your partner sees the laundry in the dryer? She does it. And then everything gets done, and you both feel great.

So my wife mentioned that we're out of litter, and I volunteered to go while I was having lunch at Panera in Greenridge, next to a PetSmart that has our two cat litter brands. Since I knew I was going, I asked her to let me know if we were low on anything else, and she pointed out we were low on 2 of the 9 (!) cat dry food brands we use to distract our very finicky cats.

I was there, I got it done, it all worked out great, while she had folded the laundry I had run last night.

80-80 for the win.

-the Centaur

Pictured: the empty bags/cans of the two cat food brands we were low on.

[twenty twenty six day one six six]: i hunger

Published June 15, 2026 by centaur
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As good as I try to be about my weight, sometimes I can't seem to help myself. Especially if I find myself super hungry at the start of a three-hour artist date at Barnes and Noble's cafe, and they've got a lone croissant sitting there with my name on it, waiting to be heated up.

-the Centaur

Picture: um, I said it.

[drawing every day 2026 day one six five]: grawlixes

Published June 14, 2026 by centaur
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A re-draw of the cover of The Lexicon of Comicana by Mort Walker, creator of Beetle Bailey. I picked this up on a trip to San Francisco for the Game Developer's Conference, and drew this in a coffee house attached to a Books Inc (now owned by Barnes and Noble) ... maybe this one. Can't remember if I found this book at that Books Inc or at nearby Russian Hill Bookstore, but I think it was the BI on Van Ness next to the Peet's, where I chose to draw after buying the book.

-the Centaur

[twenty twenty six day one six five]: drawing subtracts from writing

Published June 14, 2026 by centaur
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I started to write "drawing DETRACTS from writing" but that's not true at all: I just finished a couple of drawings for THE LEGACY OF THE EXTRA CREDIT PROJECT that helped me understand my own characters - and now I've drawn all of the core six characters signed up for the Project. So drawing doesn't detract ... but it certainly can subtract from the time you'd spend on another endeavor.

Our heroes Q'yagon and Darina I most recently used Midjourney reference for, but I had previously drawn them myself; but now, without reference, I have drawn sketches of the stoneskin healer Orieos and his birchbark ranger squeeze Berrybelle, as well as Berrybelle's fire mage brother Sapforte and his ice dragon familiar, Frostthorne. All six are now rendered by my own hand!

But, normally, the Drawing Every Day project has relatively simple drawings - several of which have appeared recently, so you can see what I mean. But at the start and finish of every notebook, I do a more detailed drawing of ... SOMETHING ... related to my writing or comics, and those take longer.

Orieos and Berrybelle finished out a DED notebook (this one from Blick art supply, pictured above) and Sapforte and Frostthorne started a new one (not pictured). O&B took an hour; S&F took three.

In that time, I could have written 500 to 1500 words (more, or less, depending on inspiration and orientation to the text) or made progress on the Logical Robotics Harness, or done work on the FROST MOON re-release or the LCATS project.

But even though I could have spent those four hours writing ... I'm happy with the result.

So even though drawing (and blogging!) subtract from writing time, I'm glad I do them.

-the Centaur

Pictured: Just the notebook, as the drawings are for days 250-251, and we're only at DOY 164.

[twenty twenty six day one six four]: vegan food can be tasty and delicious

Published June 13, 2026 by centaur
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Vegan spread trio and vegan foccacia at The 07 on Laurens Road in Greenville. While The 07 is not all vegan, it is one of our most consistent fave vegan-friendly restaurants in Greenville.

And they often have excellent vegan desserts ... as they had at our meal yesterday.

-the Centaur

Pictured: um, I said it; an artichoke panini, and the vegan dessert cake.