tadhg.com
tadhg.com
 

This website hosts my weblog and a somewhat random collection of fiction, designs, photos, thoughts, and reviews.
Web development, writing, politics and gaming are frequent topics.
Tadhg O'Higgins

Dropping the San Francisco Chronicle

23:54 Sun 19 May 2013

I’ve been a subscriber to the San Francisco Chronicle for almost 13 years, the entire time I’ve lived in the city. I started that subscription because I was used to living in a household where newspapers were a daily staple, and because I wanted to support local journalism. I also felt that major cities should have newspapers and I should thus support the city paper.

And now I’m ending my subscription.
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“The Distance”

20:17 Sun 12 May 2013

It’s not that I don’t want to listen carefully. I do. I’m interested. I care about you. I’m trying to pay attention, to be present, to not have my mind wander, to not give in to distraction.
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First Experience with the Oculus Rift

18:37 Sun 05 May 2013

The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset, with one screen per eye and covering that blocks other vision.

It’s not available yet, but a co-worker has one of the development kits and brought that into the office this week for us to play with.
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Portland Pie Recommendation

22:51 Sun 28 Apr 2013

Short post today since I’m on vacation, but I can recommend the pies at Random Order. Hope your weekend was a good one!

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The Boston Marathon Bombings

21:28 Sun 21 Apr 2013

The aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings made clear just how much the media—and apparently a substantial portion of the population—want to promote the notion that the “War on Terror” is a real war, that there’s a real and highly dangerous enemy, and that the US is engaged in a struggle where the nation itself is under threat.

Prior to the identification of the suspects, it seemed like many media figures were thinking, “please let it be Al Qaeda”—and that if if it had turned out to be some disgruntled middle-aged guy protesting IRS policies, they and a chunk of their audience would lose a lot of interest.
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Consumer Ephemera: SmartWool Men’s NTS Light 195 Zip T

23:29 Sun 14 Apr 2013. Updated: 00:31 15 Apr 2013

As I’ve written previously, I tend to get frustrated when companies stop making products I like. On the other hand, presumably this turnover of products has a part to play when I find things that I like; perhaps my complaint is more that production should be halted on things that other people like, not things that I like.
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Q’Rith Season 3 Intentions

20:35 Sun 07 Apr 2013

The third season of my D&D campaign starts Monday, and I’m going to discuss some of what I’m trying to do in it—without, naturally, giving anything away to my players.

Season One and Season Two were good, and I really liked doing them, but the environment for the third season is where I had intended the whole thing to be set when I first came up with the idea for the world: a continent that had been cut off to everyone for a very long time, a place where I could do a kind of cross between Joe Abercrombie and Deadwood[1].
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“Rain Bridge”

22:55 Sun 31 Mar 2013

The rhythm of the drive over the bridge was different. The tempo was similar to that of any slow day, but torrential rain an hour earlier had added a new beat.

Now each segment of the bridge imposed its full three dimensions on those crossing: road hiding the bay below and ceiling hiding the sky above, struts and emptiness and landscapes to the left and right, and curtains of water to the front and back.
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Political Writing Burnout

22:25 Sun 24 Mar 2013

I’ve noticed over the last few months that I’ve had more and more difficulty writing about political subjects for my blog. This ranges from commentary on overly political matters such as legislative and judicial decisions to socio-political topics such as various forms of discrimination.
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Happy St. Patrick’s Day

23:31 Sun 17 Mar 2013

No real post this week; I’m taking time off in honor of the “snakes”. Hope you had/are having a good one!

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Tiger Cub Picture

21:09 Sun 10 Mar 2013

No real post this week, thanks to the cold I can’t seem to shake off. Instead, have this picture of an adorable Bengalese/Siberian tiger cub:

baby_roscoe

This kitten grew up into “Mike VI”, the mascot of the LSU Tigers[1]. Note that I’m not an LSU supporter, and this post doesn’t constitute approval of domesticating tigers or using them as mascots.

[1] http://musicmaven.wordpress.com/2007/09/15/just-what-is-a-blue-raider/

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Spam Wave 2013: Adopting Akismet

20:07 Sun 03 Mar 2013

Spam comments to my site have reached ridiculous levels over the last few weeks; in the last two weeks there were over 35,000 messages awaiting moderation and another 10,000 or so marked as spam.

I don’t have the ability to moderate that kind of volume, so I’ve taken a couple of steps to deal with it.
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“Leavetaking”

16:40 Sun 24 Feb 2013. Updated: 14:57 05 Apr 2013

There had been rumors of war, fears that the conflict raging to the south and east would reach out for us, but we didn’t expect anything to happen soon. As I went to bed that night, I felt a mild unease, a concern about what the next months would bring.
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“Morodin and the Thorn of Nothing”

23:54 Sun 17 Feb 2013. Updated: 09:35 15 Mar 2013

The shovels made steady progress. Sern and Jerym, the two locals I’d hired to dig, grumbled at my not helping, but digging is what I was paying them coin for. I needed to be free to keep an eye on them both, as they wouldn’t have been there with me if they’d been trustworthy. The lanterns I’d brought provided enough light, and the pile of dirt to one side grew until there was a solid noise, wood struck by metal.

I stood. They looked back at me, and I told them to clear off all the dirt first. More grumbling, but they did it, and when I nodded they levered the wood apart, ripping it up and revealing the body inside.
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“How Afuegan Lost his Eye”

23:32 Sun 10 Feb 2013

In the pantheon of old Athrai, still one of the dominant Q’Resti faiths, Afuegan, brother to the god of war Atargan, is the god of archers. Afuegan is also the god of accuracy, the pursuit of excellence for its own sake, and monomania.

His singularity of focus, and his occasional blindness to larger concerns, are both represented by the fact that he is missing an eye. This is one account of how he lost it.
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Heartbreaker in New Orleans

23:38 Sun 03 Feb 2013. Updated: 00:41 04 Feb 2013

When I moved to Ireland from the US as a kid, I had never gone to a football game. I don’t really remember watching any football on television either, and was mostly aware of the sport via playing it—the two-hand touch version—on the street[1]. As a result of this, I had no defined pro football allegiance[2].

I was still attracted to the game as a spectator, and was able to see short snippets of it on Channel Four, a British television station that did a weekly hour-long highlight show covering the NFL. In the absence of regional holds on my loyalty, I gravitated towards teams for stylistic reasons. This was the MontanaRice era, and I completely fell for the precision passing attack of the San Francisco 49ers. They’ve been my favorite football team since.
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Novak Djokovic Wins 3rd Consecutive Australian Open

22:42 Sun 27 Jan 2013

Today Novak Djovokic won his sixth Grand Slam title, defeating Andy Murray 6–7 (2), 7–6 (3), 6–3, 6–2 in the Australian Open men’s final. In doing so he became the only male player in the Open era to win three consecutive Australian Opens.
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Favorite Films of 2012

23:39 Sun 20 Jan 2013. Updated: 00:40 21 Jan 2013

I started keeping track of the films I watched last year, after not having done so since 2005. I think I watched more than usual in 2012, but without numbers from past years it’s hard to tell… As with my book ratings, the ratings reflect how much I enjoyed the film at the time, and not my judgment of the film’s merits.

I rated four films 90%: The Cabin in the Woods, The Guard, Moonrise Kingdom, and the 2003 director’s cut of Alien.
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Favorite Books of 2012

22:43 Sun 13 Jan 2013

2012 was another year of little reading for me. I finished 37 books, with long periods of not reading anything at all.

The best book I read was James Gleick’s The Information, a history of information and our ways of conceptualizing it. Some of it was familiar to me, but much of it was new, and all of it fascinating. I highly recommend it.
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2012 Goals Review/2013 Goals

20:51 Sun 06 Jan 2013

I had five goals for 2012 and didn’t achieve many; arguably only one. I don’t feel too bad about this, partly because the most positive things for me last year weren’t related to anything on that list. Even so, I hope to do better this year.
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Back Next Year

19:19 Sun 30 Dec 2012

I’m still on vacation; regular posting should resume next week. Wherever you are, I hope you’ve been enjoying some time off, and I hope you have a fantastic 2013.

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A Joke Explained

19:06 Sun 23 Dec 2012

Sometimes, jokes need explanation; TV Tropes says you’re not supposed to explain the punchline, just the context, but in the case of this joke the two aren’t really separable. Furthermore, this one requires a great deal of broad knowledge in order to make sense; more breadth of knowledge than any other joke I’ve encountered so far. This became clear to me in my relating it to American friends; I didn’t notice the amount you need to know for it while I was living in Ireland[1].
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2012 Winter Holiday

17:13 Sun 16 Dec 2012

Light posting for the next while, because I’m on vacation. I hope I see you over the holidays; either way, have fun!

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