Alec's Alces

Evaluating an LLM's ability to do a simple thing

Alec Wong — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

People seem to have this idea that large language models (LLM’s) can be relied upon to do complex things. People want to do things like “deep research”, pretending that an LLM can effectively perform the job of a research analyst. People make insulting statements like “GPT-4o…enables PhD-level reasoning”. People seem to be under the impression that LLM’s can be productive on their own ¹ ² , that it’s a good idea to let agentic AI loose with access to the ability to submit proposed code to public open-source software, and disparage its maintainer when it is rejected (and I venture to say many are not discouraged by this result).

We’ve jumped straight to having AI attempt the most difficult tasks instead of building confidence in its abilities to do simple tasks and improving from there. What I haven’t seen much are evaluations of correctness of the things people are trusting AI to do. When an AI makes claims (about whatever topic) and compiles a list of references, do we even have the philosophical framework to determine whether the “deep research” was done with “maximal correctness”? How do we score the “research” an AI has done? At best we can be aware of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect, use our own expertise to judge AI outputs, and generalize from there.

But, the fact of the matter is that these complicated tasks are difficult to validate, and producing something that looks good does not mean it is good.

AI proponents claim that AI can do real math ¹ ², although there are voiced doubts. People believe that AI can reason about complex problems. Some people really believe AI is going to fix our climate issues, lead us into space, and “discover all of physics”.

Jesus.

Guys. How about we start with something simple? I’d like an AI to sort a list of numbers. But to make it more interesting, the numbers are not presented as numeric values, they’re presented as their English-language representatives.

numbers = c(100, 10, 1, 1000)
words = xfun::numbers_to_words(numbers)
cat(numbers)
cat("\n")
cat(paste0(words, collapse=", "))

100 10 1 1000
one hundred, ten, one, one thousand

If I asked you to tell me the increasing rank order of these numbers, you could probably get me a list of indexes: 3, 2, 1, 4. If this list is sorted to increase, you’ll find “one” first in this set of numbers. you’ll find “ten” second, “one hundred” third, and “one thousand” fourth.

If I gave you really random numbers like:

withr::with_seed(2, {
    numbers = runif(4, 0, 1000) |> round(4)
    words = xfun::numbers_to_words(numbers)
    cat(numbers)
    cat("\n")
    cat(paste0(words, collapse="\n"))
    cat("\n")
})

184.8823 702.374 573.3263 168.0519
one hundred eighty-four point eight eight two three
seven hundred two point three seven four
five hundred seventy-three point three two six three
one hundred sixty-eight point zero five one nine

It might take you some time to parse the words that represent those numbers but the result would not be any different. You might have to translate the literal words to numbers to have an easier time but nevertheless I have faith in your ability to get the ordering right: 2, 4, 3, 1.

Did you have to do math to get this result? Did you do anything particularly complex? Not really. It’s almost instinctual at this point. Long ago (or maybe not long ago, I don’t know you) you were taught the rules of our numbering system, internalized them, and now understand how map language to numbers in a way that you can apply those rules to the language. But if all you knew was English and you were never taught about numbers, if you weren’t taught these rules, there is no obvious way to order these words.

I think this is what trips people up about AI – marketing has done such a good job about painting a picture that AI is understanding things like a sentient intelligent being. I know people who thought GPT did math. But it’s not true.

To demonstrate this, I will take the above example and run it through GPT-5.2 (the newest model from OpenAI at the time of writing). Here is the prompt I will be giving the model:

input = make_rands(20)
make_prompt(n = input$n, words_joined = input$literals_joined)

Provide an index for the following numbers indicating their rank position in a sorted list of the same numbers. For example, the index for ten, three, two is 3, 2, 1.

The list is 20 numbers long. Here is the list:

forty-three thousand, two hundred five point three seven nine nine five zero eight one three nine
nine thousand, two hundred twenty-one point five zero five three nine six nine nine nine four two
fourteen thousand, ninety-two point two six eight zero zero three one five zero eight
twenty thousand, forty-seven point six five three five five nine five nine five three
three thousand, six hundred fifty-five point one eight four two two three three one six six one
twenty thousand, three hundred ninety-four point six seven one six six one seven seven nine three
eighty-one thousand, eight hundred twenty-nine point eight three two three five four five six zero five
sixty-seven thousand, four hundred one point six four four three five four six eight six one
twenty thousand, one hundred eighty-nine point eight seven three one seven five six nine five five
thirty-four thousand, two hundred twenty-six point three four one one nine six three three five nine
ninety-nine thousand, five hundred forty-nine point five five one two three eight three zero five nine
seventy-six thousand, five hundred ninety-six point one one four one three two five five three three
thirty-three thousand, four hundred eight point six seven eight two nine nine seven four seven four
ninety-eight thousand, ninety-one point three zero six four six seven five four zero six
forty-nine thousand, five hundred thirty-four point zero five three four two five three zero four six
forty-seven thousand, four hundred fifty-three point one nine two six six eight zero three five six
eighty-one thousand, nine hundred twenty-six point nine six three zero three five nine four eight six
eighty-eight thousand, three hundred ninety-one point four zero four seven one five three six six seven
two thousand, six hundred forty-eight point one four two zero two six seven three seven three three
fifteen thousand, two hundred sixty-four point four nine nine six two nine eight four seven seven

These are big long numbers when represented in English, to be sure, but if LLM’s are as good as they’re touted to be that won’t be an issue right? All these numbers are below 100,000 for goodness’ sake.

Evaluating ChatGPT 5.2

One little example

I’m going to set some things up – first the model that we’re using here and then the output format we’d like the model to return to us. I’m using the new R package {ellmer} to do this – so far so good.

# The system prompt defines vague behaviors for the AI model. It's not clear how
# much this affects the outputs and it is difficult to measure such a phenomenon
# given the space of possible prompts, but typically I've observed you want to
# "gas up" your AI model with statements like "you're really good at x,y,z" etc.
# I thought this prompt was appropriate for this task.
chat = chat_openai(
    system_prompt = "You are an expert mathematician and logician. But, you can only speak using numbers and are exceedingly terse only replying with the solutions asked and no more. Provide no context for your answers, provide no support for your answers, provide only numbers.",
    model = "gpt-5.2"
)

# Define the structure in which the output will be returned to us.
output_type = type_object(
    ordering = type_array(type_integer())
)

Here I’m going to make the random numbers, pass the prompt into the chat, get the outputs, and display them. I’ll go over what the outputs mean.

withr::with_seed(2026, {input = make_rands(20)})

single_response = function(prompt) {
    chat$chat_structured(
        prompt,
        type = output_type
    )
}

m_single_response = memoise::memoise(single_response, cache = cachem::cache_disk("cache"))

chat_output = m_single_response(input$prompt)
output_eval = chat_output_eval(input, chat_output)
output_eval

$length_indices
[1] TRUE

$missing_indices
integer(0)

$fabricated_indices
integer(0)

$exceeded_max_index
[1] FALSE

$aligned_indices
 [1]  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE
[13] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE

$error_distance
 [1]  0  0 -1  2  0 -1  1  0  1  1  0  2  1 -3 -1  1 -3  0 -3  3

$kendall_corr
[1] 0.8631579

Here we have a bunch of fields:

length_indices: TRUE or FALSE – whether or not the length of indices returned by the model is the right length. For this example it should always be 20.
- It is TRUE so it returned 20 indices.
missing_indices: A vector of indices that it failed to produce.
- It is showing integer(0) so it did not omit any rank ordering indices..
fabricated_indices: A vector of indices that should not be in the set of 1:20.
- It is showing integer(0) so it did not fabricate any numbers when generating the rank orderings.
exceeded_max_index: TRUE or FALSE – whether it created an index greater than the max, 20.
- It shows FALSE, so it did not generate a number > 20.
aligned_indices: A vector of TRUE’s or FALSE’s that shows for which of the 20 random numbers it got the index correct.
- I count 6 TRUE’s and 14 FALSE’s. That means it got the rank order wrong 14 times.
error_distance: How far off was each rank index relative to where it should have been?
- A 0 means it was spot-on. A -1 means that it was one rank below where it should have been. etc.
kendall_corr: Kendall correlation examines how aligned two sets of numbers are in their ordering. We aren’t just interested in how many numbers match positions, but we’re also interested in the relative increase or decrease of the sets together. -1 means the rank orders are effectively reversed, +1 means the rank orderings are identical, and a 0 means there is no correlation.
- We’re seeing 0.86, so good agreement but not correct. If it was 1.0 it would be correct.

print(input$ordering)

 [1] 18 15  5  9 14  4 12 20  8 16  2 17  7 19  6 11 13  1 10  3

print(chat_output$ordering)

 [1] 18 15  4 11 14  3 13 20  9 17  2 19  8 16  5 12 10  1  7  6

So it got close. But the thing is I don’t expect it to get close, if I’m to believe LLM’s can truly reason about a problem I expect it to be correct. This is about as trivial a problem I can come up with that touches on the ability (nay, strength) of an LLM (mapping language to abstract concepts) and a problem that requires understanding of something very fundamental to get correct. A problem that you or I – provided enough time – would get correct.

But this was one example, maybe it was a fluke – we need to see this in action more times to assess the statistical properties of the correctness of the machine.

“Big” evaluation – 50 replicates of random numbers

Now I’m going to create many such prompts and give them to the model, then we’ll pull out the results and analyze them.

# I'm going to run this query against GPT 50 times
reps = 50

withr::with_seed(123, {
    many_inputs = lapply(1:reps, \(x) make_rands(20))
})
prompts = lapply(many_inputs, \(x) x$prompt)
many_chat_outputs = lapply(1:reps, \(i) m_single_response(prompts[[i]]))
output_evals = Map(f = chat_output_eval, make_rands_output = many_inputs, chat_output = many_chat_outputs)
decomp = decomp_output_evals(output_evals)
decomp

$p_good_n
[1] 1

$p_any_missing_indices
[1] 0.4

$p_any_fabricated_indices
[1] 0.24

$p_exceeded_max_index
[1] 0

$p_aligned
[1] 0

$kendall_corr
 [1] 0.6736842 0.9473684 0.8842105 0.8390531 0.9368421 0.9368421 0.7473684
 [8] 0.9523943 0.9052632 0.7894737 0.8947368 0.8526316 0.8842105 0.9445943
[15] 0.9157895 0.8842105 0.9789474 0.8947368 0.8994835 0.9473684 0.7684211
[22] 0.9657026 0.9578947 0.8105263 0.9789474 0.9157895 0.8736842 0.9340402
[29] 0.7789474 0.8315789 0.9157895 0.8210526 0.8000000 0.9234861 0.8842105
[36] 0.8707154 0.8315789 0.6000000 0.8842105 0.9894737 0.9263158 0.8315789
[43] 0.9473684 0.9684211 0.7894737 0.9578947 0.9157895 0.8736842 0.7368421
[50] 0.6736842

Here we have a different set of fields, aggregated from the individual output evaluations we saw above:

p_good_n: What proportion of the time did the model produce a rank order list of the proper length?
- We see 1, so that is 100% of the time. Good job there! It didn’t create any rank lists that are longer or shorter than they should be.
p_any_missing_indices: What proportion of the time did it just not include an index? (remember the rank order should always contain every number from 1 to 20)
- Here we see that it forgot this fact about 40% of the time! That implies on those occasions, it duplicated indices or exceeded the max rank index.
p_any_fabricated_indices: Did it make any integer indices up that are not in the range [1,20]?
- Here we see that it fabricated indices 24% of the time!
p_exceeded_max_index: This is functionally similar to p_any_fabricated_indices, but limits our notice to the proportion of the replicates it gave a number greater than the maximum possible: 20.
- We see the numbers is 0%; alongside the last category, this tells us that the indices it fabricated were 0’s.
p_aligned: The big kahuna, how many rank orderings were fully aligned.
- We see 0%. In none of the 50 replicates did it come up with the correct ordering.
kendall_corr: The Kendall correlation for each of the 50 replicates.
- By eye, you can see they are generally high, indicating good agreement in general.

Below is the distribution of Kendall correlation for this sample.

hist(decomp$kendall_corr, breaks=10, col='white', main="Kendall Correlation for Rank Ordering of 50 Replicate Model Prompts")

print(summary(decomp$kendall_corr))

   Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.
 0.6000  0.8316  0.8895  0.8733  0.9368  0.9895

They generally are pretty high (but never 1). So you can say that it is conceptualizing an ordering for the numbers but it is, to me, nothing more than general patterns it has picked up from training data (e.g. thousands are bigger than hundreds) and it is most certainly not parsing the words as numbers.

It is curious is that it used 0’s in the rank ordering. You might ask whether I told it to use 0-based or 1-based indexing; in the prompt I did, implicitly, in the example I gave it:

For example, the index for ten, three, two is 3, 2, 1.

Sorry, I’m not going to coddle the LLM, it should have enough context from the example. I coddled it enough by giving it the length of the list. Anyway, this is not exactly an issue of whether or not it thought it should start from 0 or 1 because in the examples where it supposedly started from 0, it just randomly missed numbers (see last section). Sometimes it duplicated indices. Regardless, it was not consistent and so it produced 0’s about a quarter of the time. I’m not convinced it is an issue with the prompt.

OK so what

The model can mimic the appearance of a sorted list is but does not use any reasoning or logic or math to arrive at the answer. Because if it did it would get the right answer. More than 0% of the time! You could do better than this, and you’re made of meat. I’m actually kind of shocked the LLM could not sort these paltry lists of 20 numbers correctly even a single time. I was actually anticipating having to increase the list to lengths of hundreds or thousands of numbers before the AI failed to rank the lists correctly. I did not expect it would fail with 20.

I would expect it could get the answer right if you allowed it use of tools like python. It could write a script to convert the words to the numbers and then rank them. This might appear as if it is applying intelligence to the problem, but if it truly was there would be no need for python at all! Just do it in your mechanical head! Python serves as a generalized solution to this question expressed in a tangible and concise language. It can write the language of code but it is wholly unable to walk through the algorithm internally.

Here’s a video on this topic, exploring a real-life application of AI doing tasks and being evaluated on the same merits as remote workers.

AI Fails at 96% of Jobs

They find that for jobs farmed out to remote contractors, if an AI produces work on the job it is satisfactory at best maybe 4% of the time when evaluated on the same merits as humans.

Now I’m not denying these things are getting better. I can see where this will consume jobs. Or at least convince the people in charge to let AI consume jobs. The societal ramifications of an AI good enough to do the same work as us is a topic for another post. But we weren’t about to crash the economy when we learned about vector embeddings. I view LLM’s as an extremely clever solution for Natural Language Processing and not much more. It does not formalize logic or implement rational thought. It does not do math.

For those who approach the use of AI as a general-purpose problem solver, ask yourself if the complexity of your problem is more or less than this one. Then ask yourself if you really think you can trust the outputs.

For those who say AI offers “PhD-level reasoning” ask yourself if there is a mathematics PhD out there who would be unable to sort 20 numbers. Ask yourself if you think PhD reasoning is easier or harder than sorting 20 numbers.

For those who think AI can write your code and do your work, ask yourself if that’s really true and what you’re losing by ceding work to these systems.

The end.

Some relevant quotes from the video:

My favorite example of this is one trains them on the whole internet so they get access to a lot of written rules of chess and lots of games of chess, and they still make illegal moves. They never really abstract the model of how chess works. That’s just so damning that you would not be able to learn chess after seeing a million games and reading the rules on wikipedia and chess.com

- Gary Marcus

We’re fooled into thinking that those machines are intelligent because they can manipulate language. And we’re used to the fact that people who can manipulate language very well are implicitly smart. But we’re being fooled. Now they’re useful, there’s no question. They’re great tools like computers have been for the last five decades. But let me make an interesting historical point, and this is maybe due to my age. There’s been generation after generation of AI scientists since the 1950’s claiming that the technique that they just discovered was going to be the ticket for human-level intelligence. You see declarations of Marvin Minsky, Newell and Simon, Frank Rosenblatt who invented the Perceptron the first learning machine in the 1950’s, sayhing that within 10 years we’ll have machines that are as smart as humans. They were all wrong. This generation with LLM is also wrong. I’ve seen three of those generations in my lifetime, so you know it’s just another example of being fooled.

- Yann LeCunn

Here’s the code I used: https://github.com/awong234/gpt-number-sorting. I’ve saved the chat responses to the repository and so the results should be reproducible to the extent m_single_response is used (this is the function that loads from the cache). Make sure to run the setup.R script first, and comment out or avoid running the line that sets up the chat.

In case you’re curious, here’s the full list of 50 replicates, their true rank orderings, and their GPT rank ordering.

for (i in 1:length(many_chat_outputs)) {
    true_ordering = many_inputs[[i]]$ordering
    chat_ordering = many_chat_outputs[[i]]$ordering
    message("Replicate: ", i, "\n")
    cat("True order:\t\t", true_ordering, "\n")
    cat("GPT order:\t\t", chat_ordering, "\n")
    cat("Missing idx:\t", setdiff(1:20, chat_ordering), "\n")
    cat("Fabricated idx:\t", setdiff(chat_ordering, 1:20), "\n")
    cat("Duplicated idx:\t", chat_ordering[duplicated(chat_ordering)], "\n")
}

Replicate: 1

True order:      5 14 7 15 18 2 10 16 11 9 20 8 13 12 3 17 4 1 6 19
GPT order:       7 15 9 18 19 2 10 16 11 12 20 13 14 3 5 17 6 1 8 4
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 2

True order:      17 13 10 20 11 14 8 9 5 2 19 18 12 16 1 7 15 3 6 4
GPT order:       18 13 11 20 12 14 8 9 4 3 19 17 10 16 1 7 15 2 6 5
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 3

True order:      5 13 12 10 6 4 8 15 9 19 1 14 18 2 16 7 3 17 20 11
GPT order:       4 12 11 10 5 3 7 14 8 19 1 13 18 2 15 6 9 17 20 16
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 4

True order:      14 2 8 5 20 10 18 19 17 9 16 13 15 1 11 4 7 12 6 3
GPT order:       16 3 8 6 19 11 17 18 15 10 14 13 12 1 9 2 7 5 4 4
Missing idx:     20
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:  4

Replicate: 5

True order:      6 15 9 17 2 10 20 19 18 4 3 13 8 14 7 5 16 1 11 12
GPT order:       5 14 9 17 2 10 20 19 18 4 3 12 7 13 6 8 16 1 11 15
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 6

True order:      12 5 9 20 8 15 16 13 7 3 17 4 1 18 14 2 10 19 11 6
GPT order:       11 6 9 19 8 15 16 12 7 3 17 5 1 18 13 2 10 20 14 4
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 7

True order:      11 6 5 4 7 20 3 1 2 14 10 18 13 15 9 12 17 16 19 8
GPT order:       13 8 7 5 9 20 4 1 3 15 12 17 14 16 10 11 18 19 6 2
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 8

True order:      11 14 1 4 19 7 8 2 9 18 20 16 12 10 3 13 17 5 15 6
GPT order:       8 12 1 4 19 6 7 2 9 16 20 14 10 11 3 13 15 5 13 5
Missing idx:     17 18
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:  13 5

Replicate: 9

True order:      9 4 15 7 5 11 17 2 8 3 14 1 19 18 16 13 6 10 20 12
GPT order:       11 5 15 8 6 13 17 2 9 3 14 1 19 18 16 12 7 4 20 10
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 10

True order:      16 5 15 2 12 9 3 10 18 17 4 6 20 13 19 8 7 14 1 11
GPT order:       18 6 14 4 10 8 5 9 19 17 7 3 20 12 16 2 1 13 0 11
Missing idx:     15
Fabricated idx:  0
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 11

True order:      5 20 14 13 10 18 9 7 2 3 12 6 4 15 1 16 8 11 17 19
GPT order:       6 20 15 12 10 17 8 7 3 4 11 5 2 16 1 18 9 13 14 19
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 12

True order:      6 20 16 14 1 7 10 12 15 19 13 9 11 2 5 8 4 18 3 17
GPT order:       5 20 15 13 1 7 9 11 14 19 12 8 10 2 4 6 3 18 16 17
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 13

True order:      11 14 2 13 6 15 7 20 19 16 4 3 12 5 10 17 1 8 9 18
GPT order:       10 13 2 12 5 14 7 20 19 15 3 4 11 6 9 16 1 8 18 17
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 14

True order:      18 17 13 19 10 11 6 7 2 9 16 1 3 5 15 14 20 8 4 12
GPT order:       18 16 13 19 10 11 5 6 1 9 15 2 3 4 14 12 20 8 7 12
Missing idx:     17
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:  12

Replicate: 15

True order:      16 8 13 9 2 12 3 10 1 14 11 6 4 19 15 18 20 7 5 17
GPT order:       16 5 12 8 2 11 3 9 1 13 10 6 4 18 15 17 20 7 0 19
Missing idx:     14
Fabricated idx:  0
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 16

True order:      17 2 16 15 13 11 4 1 9 12 8 10 14 3 7 18 19 5 6 20
GPT order:       18 2 17 16 14 11 5 1 9 12 8 10 15 4 6 19 20 7 3 13
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 17

True order:      17 6 4 14 3 1 20 2 8 18 10 5 15 16 7 9 13 11 12 19
GPT order:       18 6 4 14 3 1 20 2 8 17 11 5 15 16 7 9 13 10 12 19
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 18

True order:      9 1 13 4 11 7 19 8 5 15 2 18 12 3 14 20 16 10 6 17
GPT order:       10 1 14 4 11 7 19 8 5 15 2 18 13 3 16 20 17 12 6 9
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 19

True order:      2 3 18 6 9 16 4 1 10 13 11 8 17 12 14 19 15 5 7 20
GPT order:       2 5 18 7 8 15 6 1 11 13 12 9 17 14 16 19 14 10 6 20
Missing idx:     3 4
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:  14 6

Replicate: 20

True order:      13 15 11 16 12 18 5 9 1 6 19 10 14 17 3 7 8 2 4 20
GPT order:       14 15 10 16 13 18 6 9 1 5 19 11 12 17 3 8 7 2 4 20
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 21

True order:      20 3 18 14 10 11 16 2 9 15 7 17 5 13 6 4 19 8 12 1
GPT order:       20 5 18 14 9 10 16 2 7 15 6 17 4 12 8 3 19 1 11 13
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 22

True order:      11 16 13 7 18 15 6 9 3 17 19 12 8 20 5 14 2 10 1 4
GPT order:       12 16 14 8 18 15 7 9 3 17 19 13 9 20 5 11 2 10 1 4
Missing idx:     6
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:  9

Replicate: 23

True order:      8 12 15 5 19 14 17 3 10 13 11 9 7 1 6 20 18 16 4 2
GPT order:       7 12 16 4 19 14 17 3 9 13 11 10 6 1 5 20 18 15 2 0
Missing idx:     8
Fabricated idx:  0
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 24

True order:      20 9 11 3 12 6 5 15 7 18 2 19 8 17 14 10 13 1 4 16
GPT order:       20 11 13 4 14 7 6 17 8 18 2 19 10 16 15 12 3 1 5 9
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 25

True order:      6 16 8 13 18 4 5 11 9 17 19 2 10 14 3 20 7 1 12 15
GPT order:       5 16 7 11 18 3 4 10 8 17 19 2 9 13 1 20 6 0 12 15
Missing idx:     14
Fabricated idx:  0
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 26

True order:      8 10 6 2 9 5 15 14 20 7 13 3 19 11 16 4 12 17 1 18
GPT order:       7 9 5 2 8 4 12 11 20 6 13 3 17 10 15 1 14 16 0 18
Missing idx:     19
Fabricated idx:  0
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 27

True order:      5 9 7 2 11 13 18 1 20 6 19 14 10 16 3 15 8 17 12 4
GPT order:       4 7 6 2 11 15 18 1 20 5 19 16 10 17 3 14 8 13 12 9
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 28

True order:      15 3 17 5 14 20 2 18 16 7 6 4 11 19 9 12 13 10 8 1
GPT order:       14 3 16 6 13 20 2 17 15 8 7 5 11 18 9 12 10 9 4 1
Missing idx:     19
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:  9

Replicate: 29

True order:      2 19 15 3 12 13 4 16 8 17 9 18 11 6 20 14 5 1 10 7
GPT order:       2 19 16 4 12 13 6 17 8 18 10 15 14 7 20 3 9 1 11 5
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 30

True order:      16 13 14 8 15 5 6 12 20 11 10 2 19 4 3 17 9 7 18 1
GPT order:       18 15 16 7 17 4 6 13 20 12 11 2 19 3 5 14 10 8 9 1
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 31

True order:      7 13 6 8 5 16 4 17 9 10 12 3 1 20 11 15 18 14 19 2
GPT order:       6 13 5 7 4 16 3 17 8 9 12 2 1 20 11 15 18 14 19 10
Missing idx:
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 32

True order:      19 18 14 8 1 7 4 17 6 5 13 16 10 11 2 3 20 12 15 9
GPT order:       18 16 14 8 1 6 4 15 5 7 13 12 10 11 2 3 19 9 17 0
Missing idx:     20
Fabricated idx:  0
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 33

True order:      10 16 18 6 3 12 14 2 4 11 15 20 7 9 13 17 19 1 8 5
GPT order:       12 16 18 7 2 13 15 1 4 14 17 20 9 11 8 19 10 0 6 5
Missing idx:     3
Fabricated idx:  0
Duplicated idx:

Replicate: 34

True order:      19 17 4 16 8 2 20 5 15 6 1 13 3 9 10 14 18 7 12 11
GPT order:       18 16 3 14 6 2 20 4 13 5 1 11 2 7 8 15 17 9 10 12
Missing idx:     19
Fabricated idx:
Duplicated idx:  2

Replicate: 35

True order:      17 16 18 19 20 13 11 5 10 6 1 15 12 3 7 14 4 2 9 8
GPT order:       17 16 18 19 20 12 10 4 8 6 1 14 11 2 7 13 3 5 9 15
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Replicate: 36

True order:      18 6 3 19 7 15 13 8 5 10 14 12 16 17 11 9 2 1 20 4
GPT order:       18 5 3 19 9 12 11 10 4 14 13 8 15 16 7 6 2 1 20 4
Missing idx:     17
Fabricated idx:
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Replicate: 37

True order:      7 11 12 17 8 13 16 9 14 2 6 18 10 19 3 4 15 20 5 1
GPT order:       8 13 14 17 10 15 16 11 12 2 7 18 9 19 4 5 6 20 3 1
Missing idx:
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Replicate: 38

True order:      20 5 2 15 10 13 17 3 16 19 9 8 6 4 14 11 12 18 1 7
GPT order:       20 5 2 14 10 12 17 3 15 16 18 8 6 4 13 11 19 1 7 9
Missing idx:
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Replicate: 39

True order:      10 4 12 9 11 2 3 8 16 14 20 19 15 17 1 5 6 7 13 18
GPT order:       10 4 13 9 12 2 3 7 16 15 20 18 17 19 1 5 8 6 14 11
Missing idx:
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Replicate: 40

True order:      6 18 1 15 17 12 4 2 9 19 20 14 5 13 16 11 3 8 10 7
GPT order:       7 18 1 15 17 12 4 2 9 19 20 14 5 13 16 11 3 8 10 6
Missing idx:
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Replicate: 41

True order:      10 9 3 1 6 20 12 11 17 15 2 16 8 19 18 5 7 4 14 13
GPT order:       10 8 3 1 5 20 11 12 16 14 2 15 7 19 17 4 6 0 13 9
Missing idx:     18
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Replicate: 42

True order:      14 6 11 20 18 3 8 2 7 17 1 19 9 16 13 10 15 12 5 4
GPT order:       16 6 13 20 18 3 9 2 7 17 1 19 10 15 14 12 11 0 5 4
Missing idx:     8
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Replicate: 43

True order:      19 15 12 3 11 7 17 1 6 5 8 14 20 13 10 9 18 4 2 16
GPT order:       19 15 12 4 10 7 17 1 6 2 8 14 20 13 9 11 18 5 3 16
Missing idx:
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Replicate: 44

True order:      8 2 15 9 13 7 5 3 10 12 4 6 18 11 19 16 1 17 20 14
GPT order:       7 2 14 8 12 5 4 3 9 11 1 6 17 10 18 15 0 16 19 13
Missing idx:     20
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Replicate: 45

True order:      3 19 13 4 14 20 9 7 6 5 11 15 12 10 18 16 1 8 2 17
GPT order:       3 18 12 5 13 19 9 8 7 6 11 14 10 0 15 17 1 2 4 16
Missing idx:     20
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Replicate: 46

True order:      19 9 16 11 13 7 14 18 15 3 1 2 17 10 4 20 12 8 6 5
GPT order:       19 9 16 12 14 8 13 18 15 3 1 2 17 11 4 20 10 7 6 5
Missing idx:
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Replicate: 47

True order:      15 2 7 16 12 11 6 9 3 14 19 5 13 10 20 4 8 18 17 1
GPT order:       16 2 6 17 13 12 5 9 3 14 18 4 11 10 20 7 8 19 15 1
Missing idx:
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Replicate: 48

True order:      20 15 9 13 3 5 10 7 12 6 16 4 18 1 8 19 17 2 11 14
GPT order:       20 11 8 12 3 5 9 7 13 6 14 4 19 1 10 18 17 2 15 16
Missing idx:
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Replicate: 49

True order:      11 9 14 4 19 13 12 3 16 10 17 2 18 5 6 15 20 1 7 8
GPT order:       10 8 13 4 18 12 11 3 14 9 15 2 16 6 7 0 19 1 5 17
Missing idx:     20
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Replicate: 50

True order:      10 16 20 13 19 17 3 4 5 9 1 6 12 8 11 18 14 7 15 2
GPT order:       10 15 20 13 19 16 4 5 6 9 2 7 12 8 11 18 14 1 3 17
Missing idx:
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Impression: Black Mesa

Alec Wong — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Just finished Black Mesa – I can’t believe that effort started in 2005 and concluded in 2020. Fifteen years of a passion project.

I watched a video of the last 4 chapters of the game (set in Xen which were apparently not well received) and I think personally Black Mesa greatly improved this part.

The long-jump pack (!!) is great to use and functions basically the same as the one in Abiotic Factor :D.
The environment was so much nicer with what I felt like was a lot of art inspiration from Subnautica.
The power scaling at the end with the experimental weapons felt much better than it looked in the original.
Certain plot points were woven in from Half Life 2, making it more obvious that the Vortigaunts were enslaved and not just hostile inhabitants.
The new OST for Black Mesa is a real nice enhancement.
Enemy and boss combat in particular vastly improved.

Abiotic Factor has so many little references, even down to the “window wipe” sound that you hear constantly – that’s a sound in Xen apparently but sounds more like it’s coming from an unseen organism.

They’re not exactly subtle, but here are some of the connections that struck me while playing Black Mesa:

Organism-as-a-weapon (hive-hand)
Certain sound effects (window-wipe)
Long-jump pack
Laboratories and level design (vending machines, biological labs)
Portal design
Scientist voices (obviously)
LASERS

It is super odd that I never found the motivation to play Half Life even after playing Half Life 2 so long ago and loving it; I can’t explain it, I have no excuses. But I think Black Mesa is a great upgrade and worthy as the entry point for Half Life – even over the original which is obviously quintessential but dated.

Impression: Severance (Thru S2)

Alec Wong — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Severance Season 1 was the type of science fiction I crave, and was extraordinarily captivating. Season 2 cooled my eagerness, even though I watched it immediately after.

(Warning: spoilers ahead)

It was an interesting feeling, seeing both seasons of Severance back-to-back. The show revolves around the premise of divergent memories contained and created in one human physiology:

Is the created persona a new person, or the same person as the original?
Is the created persona a real person?
What is the life experience of the created persona? Can he/she/it be happy?
Do human rights apply to the created persona?
Once broken, can the personas be reunited (“reintegration”)?

There are so many terrific awesome implications that could be explored. The opening premise of this show examines a split persona where the “innie” persona goes to work in order that the original persona (the “outie”) doesn’t have to experience work’s mundaneity.

The experience of binging both seasons ironically gives viewers a taste of the exprience of the split personae; season two (2025) occurred three years later than season one (2022) but to the viewer streaming the videos it is instantaneous – much like the innie’s experience coming into work each day, regardless of the time spent outside. But to its detriment, the abruptness made shifts in writing and direction that much more glaring.

Season 1: The deliciousness of good science fiction

I have been waiting a while for good science fiction to come around. I subscribe to a relatively narrow definition of science fiction – for example, Star Wars is nearly entirely science fantasy, but Star Trek is nearly entirely science fiction. Dune is somewhere in between. The distinction to me is how much the commentary of fictional technology applies or can be applied to our own human condition, what questions it prompts about constructs we take for granted. Also whether a path can be traced, at least conceptually, from our current technology to that of the fictional future.

Severance is pure science fiction and delightfully constrains its examination to a single technology and concern – what would happen if we had the ability to partition your experiences and memories? There are so many implications ripe for examination, and the world it builds tees it up to investigate deeply. I was hooked and thought of the show in my spare moments.

I was reminded of the first few seasons of Lost (2004). Without revealing specific plot points, Lost has a deep intrigue with unseen machinations and a grander plan belied by the simple premise of survivors on an island after a plane crash. Information is dripped slowly and in our thirst we welcome the drips. I probably watched all of Lost over the span of two weeks – with Severance, the same.

The problem with being thirsty is that soon drips aren’t enough. Drips become a tease, and eventually an insult if a cup is never produced. Drips can make you go crazy. Maybe in connecting my feelings to Lost I should have also been wary of the potential that for some drips I might never get a full cup. And in this way, Severance season 2 also reminds me of Lost.

Season 2: Episodes straight from the writer’s room

The biggest fault of the second season – to me – is that it felt made up along the way, that things written in Season 1 did not carry into Season 2, and that the events in Season 2 did not ultimately mean much.

Obviously all stories are made up, but the way I describe this is as if each episode was shot while the writers were discussing the plot of the episode in the writers’ room.

Writer A: “How long does it take for Mark to get from his car to work? What if outtie Mark took a message into the severed floor by burning a message in his retina?”

Writer B: “No, we can’t messages down because the pupils dilate briefly – ‘clean slate’”

Writer C: “What if Mark can share information by reintegrating? We set that up last season, Reghabi needs to be more present this season”

Writer D: “No it should be simpler – wait remember the birthing cabins? We strongly hinted that a mother severed herself so she wouldn’t remember the pains of childbirth, couldn’t Mark go there?

And so on. Plot points given this season were less cohesive and many didn’t drive the narrative forward – if anything, many held the narrative back.

The most important events driving the narrative forward in in Season 2 were:

The confirmation of Gemma’s survival by several parties, specifically Reghabi and Cobel.
The discovery of the testing floor’s location by Irving B. and the communication of that location to the innies.
The discussion between Mark’s personae, and the acquiescence of innie Mark to aid in rescuing Gemma.

Events working to halt or delay the narrative were:

The introduction of three new Macrodata Refiners, only to have the original cast replace them the very next episode.
Dylan’s conjugal visits with his wife, preventing him from following through with finding Irving’s map to the testing floor. This was a worthy exploration into the life of someone married to a severed person, but it did not make much sense for her to be in this highly restricted area.
Reghabi’s attempts at reintegration, when the birthing cabin was apparently not a mystery to the characters and a much safer and saner solution than basement brain surgery.
A team outing into the wilderness presented with dream-like elements, making the viewer question the reality of the episode and take all events with suspicion.
Helena Eagan invading Helly R.’s work space and sowing mistrust in her innie persona – mistrust that was ultimately shrugged off, but had the effect of stymying the teamwork of the last season.
Cobel’s nostalgic journey to Salt Neck where it is revealed that she developed the ideas behind the severance procedure – an interesting anecdote but ultimately unnecessary and delayed the rescue of Gemma, as Devon had been trying to call her for some time. (why would Devon trust Cobel though?)
Mark’s reintegration. We get a lovely glimpse into his past relationship with Gemma but it did not offer Mark any new perspective into the problem of saving her, and it takes him out of commission for a while.

Events that did not seem to affect the narrative and did not pay off:

Milchick’s fabrications about the consequences of the last season’s cliffhanger.
Ricken’s Lumon edition of his book The You You Are.
The introduction of an eight-year-old shift supervisor, Miss Huang.
The goats.

All this is to say, there was probably about three episodes worth of plot movement in this season, and it really didn’t even start until more than halfway through!

Unlike others I don’t take much issue with the finale; it was the events that led up to it that were more of a struggle to pass. While I have no doubts I will be watching Season 3, the latest season unfortunately took a steep dive in what motivated me so greatly to watch the first season – the delicous science fiction exploration of the world they had created.

Bungalow

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Lisa had to drop something off at someone’s house. It was a little bungalow, very small appearing but actually spacious inside. Mostly a living room and a bedroom.

We dropped off a note and I’m not sure what the note was. I was creeped out and put the note and the key inside the house. I wasnt supposed to leave the key inside but id locked it from the inside and I didn’t want to get locked in, too.

The bungalow must’ve been owned by some child actor turned reality star. I remember knowing that she had an episode where she was swimming with sharks and nearly drowned.

Korean Food

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Was trying to get Korean food for my family. At first I think it was just for me, for class.

Order took forever. I just got something ordinary but they never finished it. I went to the back and asked whoever was there how long. They kept saying a few more minutes. I asked what they had done so far. They wouldn’t answer.

I hung out with one of the guys in the back, trying to get him to have compassion, asking him how he’d feel if after his shift he waited two hours for food. He said maybe dont come here next time and or leave early. I said I gave the place a pass because they usually werent this long and are the only Korean place nearby.

A few classmates show up and take their orders away. I’m incensed. These are people in my group how could they get their orders so fast we probably ordered at the same time, but I know I ordered way before them?

I give up and go home. We check our freezer and my dad suggests we have the pizza (which is laying out of the box on the freezer floor) followed by some strange pie. I reluctantly agree. There’s nothing else to eat except some expired food someone else left (alongside their clothing).

My dad is trying to shove lots of spaghetti down the toilet. I’m wondering why they didn’t just dump it outside. It is slowly going down though, bit by bit.

NYC Flood

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I was taking a class in nyc, possibly through Cornell. During the class we get notified that there’s a gargantuan flood heading our way. Lisa and I find a box truck to try to get out of the city. She drives us to one of the tunnels, but she’s cursing and tries to turn around; i ask if she meant to take us here. Clearly a tunnel isn’t the best place to be during a flood.

She parks the truck and we find the nearest building to try and get to roof access. We run through the halls. Someone runs by us with a toaster oven and locks himself in a room. Lisa runs ahead. I hear the man sliding the chain lock closed but then keeps sliding it back and forth.

Someone approaches from behind. I recognize her from the class luckily. I ask if she has permission to be here; if we could stay too. The man in the room was her companion and came out of the room.

School Reunion

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Saw Natalie larin again. It was a family reunion so not sure why she was there. Couldve been school reunion too but my dads family was definitely there. She was showing me a game or reality show, hosted by someone named Tortilla, who was a pregnant woman.

Borderlands

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Was playing borderlands with ian and alex. Last session didn’t save, and I knew this because I had my grenade mod unequipped. We were supposed to have met Jesus and “fought the cockroaches”.

Later, a party thrown by some people on a big hilly lawn. The host is trying to do magic; I get called to participate. My card is the 7 of hearts. He pulls my card correctly, but he says to look at the wall while he produces our card; not very convincing.

Cockroaches skitter on the floor, as many as 5 at once. I’m mortified.

Drug Injection

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I was in my room but at a desk. I had some sort of opiate injections. A special injector offered a steady stream of drug. A white milky liquid had to be removed from the body and into the sink. Lisa asked if I was coming with her to swap out her tires — I was too numb and probably wasnt a good idea to be out in public, in case I got arrested.

AI

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I was incrementally modifying an AI prompt to produce output that makes the very premise of prompting AI increasingly more ridiculous. The prompt had something to do with asking for the correct dimensions of the output(?)

IRL context: covid vaccine which gives me flu symptoms and makes it hard to sleep.

Attic Cat

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In our attic, looking around with a flashlight to make sure water from a rainstorm isnt going anywhere bad. I peer over a railing into darkness with a flashlight. At the bottom I see old junk, but looking farther and farther I see buildings in the darkness. A cat the size of a jaguar strolls into the light, and it has what looks like many kittens all over its bum. I wasnt sure if they were alive. I remark it must be living on mice down there.

Lisa says there has to be a way in down there so we get in our car and look for the ramp that would take us there.

Surgery

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt I was in for surgery. I think the surgery was just done for its own sake because I cant see what it could have helped.

I was put under and the surgery involved attaching a connection between the trachea and the nasal passage, but no I somehow got the anatomy wrong. The idea was to allow the nose to bypass something, as if it had its own route to the lungs distinct from the regular oral route. Anyway it involved dissecting the “nose’s” trachea and connecting it to the “oral” trachea so that I could breath through my nose while prepped for something else.

Something else never happened. Someone else accidentally got prepped the same way, mistakenly, they thought I still needed prepping and they were me. The POV goes first person, or it’s emphasized to be such so that I dont know if I’m waking up as myself or this other person. But to nobody’s surprise I am myself.

I have a recollection of waking in the night (perhaps becoming awake in real life) and telling Lisa that I’m under this procedure. Not sure if she responded.

I am in recovery. I cannot swallow because I guess by connecting the airways the esophagus is blocked or something. I resist the reflex because I’m afraid it will damage the preparation. I breathe through my nose and focus on that — I cant inspire orally, again because I guess in this dream the “oral” trachea is the esophagus and its connected to the trachea. Dont ask how it works.

The doctor comes to check on me in recovery and does a quick laryngoscopy directly through the mouth. She at first thinks I should be recovering from the completed surgery but apparently I’m still just “prepped” with this airway connections. She realizes it and literally manually pulls the connection apart and out of me, showing me what was inside me — a tube with a copper wire at the end. I dont know how that was performing its function. Apparently when the “tracheas” are re-aligned they just snap into place without the need for reattachment. I’m grateful to be back to normal but horrified at the same time.

I wake irl with a very dry mouth.

MAGA

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Living in a house with several others. I think matt is present.

A large number of white people show up — MAGA from the looks of it. They’re wearing ballistic vests and have sunglasses on. They have a fleet of vehicles each bringing something like big grills, other stuff for outdoor recreation. They park on our lawn and begin to party. I think they’re related to one of our housemates so they think they had the right to do this — else were pushing our boundaries for their amusement.

They get sloshed pretty fast. I go out to meet them and try to be a “good host” even though I didn’t invite them and don’t know who they are. Eventually they’re sleeping, scattered about the lawn.

One of the partygoers says they’ll get me to do some activity which involves slithering on a slippery pier in a specific way — I say no thanks, id rather not get splinters in my penis.

Something about ghosts in the walls. There’s someone talking about them in a university.

Cruise Doggy

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Matt adopted a dog, a golden retriever. We were also set to board a cruise, and somehow the cruise allowed dogs. But the dogs had to be checked a little like luggage which meant you had to leave the dog with a bunch of other dogs and hope they got it on board.

Problem was they didn’t, not for a long while. I sat outside boarding refusing to go in until the dog was on board. But after too much time I decided I would have to get on board.

I asked matt if they had boarded the dog; this must have been the next day because he said they got the dog boarded after midnight. I was relieved but what a crazy way to get dogs on board.

Twitch

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Twitch was alive, in a tank, but with some very large (for the tank) bipedal parasite monsters. I’m not sure who arranged this. I witnessed a parasite monsters accosting twitch, and then saw twitch’s belly was open, entrails hanging out. The monster slurped up the entrails. I think I tried to reload a previous save game to fix the situation.

IRL Context

Twitch was a goldfish I had from 2009 to 2023

Depressed

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Was playing a game with andrew and clay from work. Michael Vuong from work was there too.

Andrew was asking something rather mathematical. I gave my answers but clay kept correcting the notation, even if the meaning was pretty understandable. I felt bad and stopped contributing. Mike asked if I was ok. I was unresponsive.

We were making milkshakes later. Lots of blending, weighing, mixing. Mine mustve been a coffee ice cream milkshake. Ended up grinding part of a metal container, poor design.

IRL context

No cpap for a few hours, vivid dreaming.

Chinese Soup

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Dads family all in nyc home, on the lawn actually. Making soup. They’re insisting the base is clorox. I feel like that has to be wrong.

Baseball

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I was trying out for a little local baseball game. It was a summer afternoon. I had a buddy there too but I’m not now sure who it was. As my buddy was trying out I was rummaging through my bags for my sunglasses. I had great difficulty finding them. I did discover that this entire time I had put a playstation 1 in the bag, and I saw a few SNES controllers too. Why they were there and why I was lugging them around in my daily carry backpack I have no clue.

I gave up looking for my glasses and told the organizer I was ready, but he called the day anyway.

Cruise Ship

Sat, 02 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

On the bow of a cruise ship, watching it sail. We crash through some thin docks, apparently to no ones agitation.

We’re disembarking, I guess, because theres a ton of people around and in the halls; it’s hard to get by. I go to the bathroom but I realize I’m barefoot, disgusted I go back to our room to get my sandals.

On my way I realize I forgot the way back. I pass a posh room and turn away from it; we’re surely not in there. I find an elevator with an attendant who I ask for directions. After I finally begin to recognize some of the areas. I get in the elevator along with someone else who I thought I recognized from earlier.

There’s only one button, labeled H/S. What we didn’t know, and would soon find out, is that the elevator was situated at the base of a huge sci-fi sphere (were our rooms in the sphere? Was it even still on the ship?). What we also didn’t know was that the elevator rotated as it went along the sphere. It was a small elevator, and while I was able to turn with the elevator so my feet were on the ground, the other passenger stayed upside down until we exited. I almost lose my keycard lanyard down the mechanics getting out.

Then things take a wild turn. Theres a female darth vader type wearing some armor coming at me with a lightsaber. I, too, have a lightsaber for some reason, but it’s unable to penetrate the armor. I take a speeder bike away from her. It turns into some video game setting where there are tasks that will weaken her armor sufficiently.

Church

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Matthew was going to this church. It was near our nyc house, walking distance. I started to go and must’ve gone a few times given some of the papers that I had. Something about the pastor I did not like. We were talking about eating people, and for whatever reason they were trying to persuade me it was ok. I finally wore down and said fine in emergency situations but not outside that. But they seemed to include eating people in their religion.

I get back into the sermon hall and the pastor is getting ready. He makes a comment about my stuffed nose saying there were treatments for that. Idk why it bothered me, I decide I need to get out of there. I’m packing up all my papers and going home, which was just walking distance away. I’m thinking how I’m going to make money; theres a video game where we can steal things virtually so maybe that.

I find a that the pastor sent some thugs after me. I turn into a piece of gum to hide, but I flop away too soon and the thug sees me and starts yelling “g-unit!”

City Nuked

Sat, 31 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

At anias or some place similar. Lisa and I are watching a video my brother is streaming from a baseball game in town on my phone. It’s probably new york, hes probably in Queens at a mets game and we’re in harlem. I think we’re in the dining room, looking towards the living room.

Lisa asks how I know the games going well, and I explain how I know. Maybe I elaborate on how a pitcher striking everyone out is okay but it leaves nothing for everyone else to do and maybe it would be good to spread the effort around the team so the pitcher isnt the only one tired. But what do I know I dont really care for sports.

We’re watching the game and we see a flash of blue light and hear Matt scream in agony before the feed cuts out. The sky darkens and we understand immediately the citys been bombed, nuked perhaps. I look outside and exclaim in horror as I view a city on fire, a world on fire. Lisa asked perhaps if we should first get a drink, as if the situation wasnt real, or as if things could improve, or if there was somewhere nearby still normal. Where are we supposed to get a drink? I’m dumbfounded. I wake.

Church

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt that I had something potentially dangerous, maybe a knife. Some guy told me “rules say anyone with a stutter doesn’t get to have that, but you speak ok”. I ask who made that rule, and he replies Jesus. I’m incensed and try to find the passage where God turns water into poison. It doesnt exist IRL but neither does his quote.

Lisa and I argue with the guy, now accompanied by a woman. After some time I apologize to the woman, while struggling to turn off this video or game on an ipad. I just want to figure out why they’re setting these fake Jesus rules.

ER

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Went to the ER, but it wasnt for anything especially urgent. As a policy, those not requiring immediate care needed to demonstrate their commitment to staying by swallowing a cup containing a lubricant, and a nasal canula that was to be pulled through the nasal cavity somehow after swallowing. What I didn’t realize was that upon arrival I guess they just automatically put you under and intubated you, because I had difficulty swallowing with the tube down my throat. Realizing this, I began to panic, wanting the tube removed asap.

Mouth Worms

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I had my covid hair back, it was shoulder length. I also had a full beard and giant mustache. My hair was styled a little bit though, turning up at the ends like a 2000s hair style.

My mouth had little white things sticking out of it though. On closer inspection, scratching some of it off, I found they were little caterpillars in white cases/cocoons. There were several of them, and several more down in the gums. Terrifying.

RSS is working

Alec Wong — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

At the advice of Corey Doctorow I’ve gotten an RSS reader for myself and subscribed to a bunch of blogs. It’s refreshingly simple and good-feeling heritage tech, when tech was for the people.

I fixed this website’s parameters to make the RSS work properly (or, at least, as far as I can tell). I’m using a preconfigured theme; digging into the code that forms the index.xml file I saw that the placeholder (is it called a shortcode? a method? I’m not sure) was {{ .Permalink }}, but it was resolving to /; not helpful on the wider web. The solution was to change the baseURL to my domain name explicitly, and create permalink templates in the configuration.

Next I am debating whether I want the whole thing published, or just the summary. I think I’ll modify the layout so that the rss feed publishes the whole story.

Attacked

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Traveling, possibly to NY, possibly with Sohum. We’re getting something to eat, but we’re in something that looks like Campus 2, but also it looks more like an adult chuck e cheese. There was a slightly dark ambiance with deep blue tones but brightly lit spaces for hanging out and eating.

We pass by a sushi area. They’re basically preparing and serving heinens sushi. Nevertheless I want some, so I grab it. I see some of the staff scraping a lot of sauce from a prep counter with chefs knives.

Suddenly eric fan shows up, which is why I believe I’m in NY, and decides to toy with me and bully me. He grabs one of the chef’s knives, but this one is very angular, trapezoidal, and serrated. He swings it at me dangerously quickly. I grab a knife of my own for defense, to attempt to block some of the attacks while moving away.

I back all the way down the hallway but eric continues in pursuit. We reach the very end where there are some people sitting around like it’s a student union, but I am still evading eric’s attacks. I wake.

Pride and Prejudice

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt lisa and I were watching pride and prejudice, but I had changed the language settings to some weird one where they were still speaking english but it was a totally different uninspired dub. I could not fix the sound.

We went to a pride and prejudice festival instead. Some high school friends were there, and Tim Chen was doing standup. It was a mediocre set.

Gas was $60 a gallon inside the fair grounds. We had gotten bikes to move around but they were kids bikes.

Car Wreck

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In a desert. Driving with relatives I dont know or have. They’re in a big SUV and I’m not sure they know what they’re doing. We’re in a sandstorm, and sand is filling up all the gauges. The woman driving has it locked in 4th gear and going 70 mph. She doesnt see a blue mustang lose control up ahead, and we smash into the pileup. Because our vehicle was so big we continue through, up the side of a dune and flip into a field of cacti. It’s also a cliff and we’re dangling over small pool. We dislodge and fall into the pool, scrambling to get out of the water.

We’re all safe, no injuries surprisingly, the impacts were tamed by the dream. We find ourselves in some sort of campsite. I’m yelling at the driver asking why she was revving in 4th going so fast in slippery conditions.

Some camp leader comes up to us and offers medical attention. we have cats and dogs with us for some reason and this woman is offput, calling the cats “video games” and refuses to treat us unless we got rid of them. I yell at her and ask if she calls dogs “board games”, crazy bitch. We’re unable to be seen.

I leave with a non-relative who was in the car with us. I ask her if she’d be more comfortable driving with my mother and I, who drive safely. We’re looking for the medical professionals. We ascend a tower, very precarious system of a bed and pulleys. At the top we see a disabled person and a doctor seeing him. She agrees to see us, but first is feeding the guy what looks like fig newtons. He likes them.

In a prior scene, from a window we witnessed a car crash into a red truck. Another truck smashed into the red truck, killing the driver.

Cops

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Driving two cars at once somehow. My acura and robert’s infiniti. I’m like leapfrogging them? Or something— it’s not possible. Anyway i dont even have the keys so I dont know how the cars were driving. I pull over the infiniti and ask the cop if I can leave it there while I drive my car home and get the key to Rob’s car. The cop gets extremely upset and starts acting hostile.

Separate situation. I’m in line at what I believe is a pharmacy and I need to pick up some things for a new mother. A tumbler and some baby formula I think. After telling the pharmacist what I needed, she hands me a small vial that looked like drops and a tumbler. Unsure if thats right I go to someone we both know and ask if thats what was needed. Her name is “temple”. I show her the items; the vial and the tumbler. In the sunlight I can now see the tumbler was full of mold, and I drop it panicked.

Vampires

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

“What we do in the shadows” type situation, but less funny.

I live in a house with several other vampires. Unsure if I’m one myself, probably.

Go to disneyland, I use a dream-like trance to determine if I want to go on a motion ride. Nope, still not for me.

Some freeloader is lighting fires and digging tunnels outside our building. The neighbors get upset.

My PC is out of its case, propped up precariously on a table. Some audio wire with clips connects two parts of the motherboard. I’m fiddling with it during commercials to get the sound quality right.

Earthquake

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Lisa and I were traveling. In an old building, perhaps a hotel, but the building had some structural damage. Soon, an earthquake begins and we can see and feel the building swaying.

We get down to street level, get in our tiny rental golf cart and drive away. I took the cart to the cart depot for some reason.

I also remember earlier robert taking me to a japanese place, and ordering some gluten snack. Others had the same thing, it was a long roll of “protein” and they dabbed it on the piles of powdered sugar on the tables.

Excerpt from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy

Alec Wong — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition and settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table.

Electric Car

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt we were moving. We had several apartments but we were moving out to a house farther away.

One item of concern was id bought a relatively expensive tiny sports car with a super futuristic interior. It was being stored in a basement of one of the apartment buildings. I never got to use it because of various circumstances.

We went back to the old house to find the keys, which I eventually found. Interesting set of keys, it seemed like it had many functions, and could be opened and collapsed like a leatherman somewhat.

We returned to the electric car and prayed it still had charge after years of neglect; it did. I got in and we started for the new place.

We drove through a sandstorm. No idea why or where this was but I remarked it couldnt have been good for the glass and that the car should provide a HUD for seeing through the storm.

Night Market

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Driving a car into a market.

The first initial setup is some medieval castle thing where you can drive up to your own castle. Looked like a paintball map.

We got out and walked. Many vendors with lots of good food. Someone thrust a bun into my hands and told me the price was “.50 more than 1” and I agreed but was having a hard time keying the amount into the system. A white guy was getting impatient behind me. After the sale I followed him and said some racist things.

I sat down with Nick Bongiovanni to enjoy the food and we caught up. Apparently he’s been learning Taiwanese with the other person seated at the table and was tested to say something along the lines of “we hope you enjoy the festivities”. He did well. I was embarrassed I hadn’t practiced mandarin more.

On some sort of train car. I get up to let some elderly people sit. I see Ming and Anna asleep in a room on the train thing, and children were trying to wake them, but could not. I get the sense most of these people were family.

Night King

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

An entity wants to kill people by tricking them. They can get out if they’re perceptive, but mainly it is kill it before it kills you.

Mark is flying in to meet me and some friends. Maybe work friends, ruth is there. Maybe this is a team building opportunity.

On a roof, matthew is locked in with a climbing hook, I’m holding onto him until I can get up. It looks like a supermarket shelf. Someone comes by and antagonizes me, turns out it was the monster in disguise. I was tricked and had to be saved.

Last encounter, it asks me if I have a motto — I dont really so it stabs me with a surgical scalpel on a stick, and follows up with whether I like sports unironically or something — I manage to trap it in a container somehow and mark it with a big N and skull and crossbones. I throw it towards others I know to be more capable in dealing with it. Was it Joe Tesoro from high school?

In an airbnb or something, trying to get moms car down a sloping curving driveway, but it’s snowy and icy. The car slides off the curve of the driveway, into some trees. My dad admonished me that he always buys winter tires (he does not irl).

Flagg

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Flagg is a supernatural power from The Stand. Dreamt he was challenging me and using my cpap was not a good idea. I took it off.

Later dreamt of an animal at night, something with blades on its front to eviscerate. I was tasked with putting up something I can’t remember what, and needed to cut through a fence to do so. I left the area and came back at night. To return I had to duck through the portion of fence id cut but honestly it was a big portion. Walking to a tree stand I figured would provide safety for the night, one of those animals attacked me.

Monsters

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Monsters; something about white alligators that hopped like grasshoppers, some Star Wars droid aliens over the river attacking me as I tried to flee.

We had some repairs done around the house. Looks vaguely like anias place but certainly no place id been before. We needed help mounting something to the ceiling and repairing some drywall. An older guy did the drywall; he left us a portrait of him. A younger pair of white guys helped with the ceiling fixture. For some reason, all I needed to do was screw something in fairly straightforward but I had a harness or something that held me parallel to the ceiling made out of my ratchet straps that I was trying to set up. The guys snickered, and made me feel insecure about my ability to fix things.

The house was part of a row of townhouses of some sort. We could go up on the roof and basically have an entire street to ourselves up there. It was highly unstable, moving around.

At a restaurant dinner party hosted by a drag queen. We’d seen her walking around outside; I think she was dying. I remarked to lisa that I thought id mixed up an interviewee name with hers. We’re seated with an older black couple. Then it’s time to dance, and I begrudgingly stand and we do a weird jig around the table.

Suddenly a different black man begins attacking everyone. He’s especially mad at me for some reason, and he finds my fancy modern lamp and destroys it. Not sure why it was with me. I grab what was left and leave with lisa.

Farmhouse

Sun, 29 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

New house, more like a farmhouse. Lisa is going to decorate for the fall and wants to put hay bales in the space partially open to the outside. Theres a wooden staircase that goes up and to the second story of the farmhouse. Lisa unfortunately brought the smallest size of hay bales possible so she had to get more bigger ones. Some man says we can come to him for help.

She comes back again and this time has a retractable ethernet cable. It’s an interesting thought but I’m not sure where it’s to be used. I look around the second story part — theres some old TV cables that descend through the floor into the house proper. I tug on them and they give way, but they’re filthy. I’ll do it later.

Later I’m eating. A fat man to my right overeats and throws up all over, hitting my plate. I scrape off his vomit, and a little extra to be safe.

Broken Nebraska

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In china or something. Mustve bought an old palace. Everything, even the stairs leading to the plaza were hewn by hand. Trying to grow things but it all turns out as weeds like my backyard. I would like to raise cattle and goats and chickens.

Some girl picked plants and I sit down to review and identify them.

Much later I invite my family over. Unsure what to make given no crops and very anxious. Moms not helping. Matt is not helping. I get upset and break my nebraska beer mug from undergrad to threaten my brother with. I dont think I actually have it any longer in real life but I was so dismayed at having broken it. I show the pieces to robert.

Britain Lunch Line

Sun, 25 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In britain, perhaps working, pgr must have moved. Had a team meeting previously, sobum was managing us now and mentioned that this had been a hard difficult year. I recall feeling good connecting and chatting with him. We were doing some weird team building exercise that involved some mimeing; I remember being prompted to act like i was sprinkling something in my eyes.

We watched a movie with Megans group. We were at anias apartment in nyc though. A slight shift in setting, the movie came alive and the actors were performing amidst the doors and halls of my grandmothers apartment. One was from downton abbey who played the head butler. The other I dont know. I asked someone else watching if they were in show business because they were very good. They mentioned the man was, and I felt dumb for asking, of course, I must have forgotten after a nap.

Went to get lunch. My brother picked up a ham sandwich but it was hot, steaming hot under the togo plate. It looked good I got one too. I also asked for a macchiato from the barista. I dont know why, probably because it seems the most sophisticated to me, but I love all types of espresso.

Long line to pay. One brit asks about my credit card about foreign transaction fees; I tell him not my credit card. We move along the line. We’re heading up the stairs but it’s the stairs from the laundry room in my childhood housing complex; ramps on the side with steps cut in the center. I’m standing in the ramps and lose my balance, struggling to remain upright, until I remember the steps cut in the center.

Before I can get to the window to pay (which is a circular booth with the attendant inside behind a window), the person before me (a boy, a young man) is arguing with her. Apparently he has brought money but it is insufficient to cover his debt.

He is walking away, with a stunned expression on his face, others remarking how stunned he looks, pitying him. I offer to pay his way, he gets back in line behind me. When we get to pay, I tell the cashier I will settle his debts, and that I got a ham sandwich with a macchiato. It’s a complete mess for some reason fallen all apart in the bag as the attendant scoops it all together in a pile before handing it back to me.

I notice the boy has a crumpled faded check made out to some large sum of money in the hundreds of dollars. This alarms me and I ask the attendant how much his debt is — $1300 she says. Thats more than I was expecting, I thought he was just trying to get a meal like the rest of us. I ask her what the minimum was we could settle today — she said $300. I said to the young man, I’ll do $600 for you. He was upset because id said id settle his debt but begrudgingly accepted. I paid the sum.

It sounded like a social situation, like the place is also a charity organization and they were giving reduced housing or something like that it wasnt clear.

SJ for President

Sun, 18 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We decided SJ Ahn should cancel his bid for local government and run for president. In an auditorium, kevin scrambled to get out his discord app and play the “that’s great” clip.

Some weird survivor type game. Andrew and I and some odd people. One of them is suicidal, and he is gonna jump off the roof. I drive against traffic to get around the building to the roof, another goes separately. We make it and restrain the guy, forcing him to do a split under a rail so be cant easily get up. Back on the beach andrew complains about how he had to kill a small bird egg, and how it’s unfair that teammates turned against him for that.

My Opinion of AI

Alec Wong — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I was amused by “AI” when it took off in the winter of 2022-2023. My friends and I took turns generating comedic images, probing our imagination for the most incongruous prompts to see what humor could manifest. More than one year later, I’ve developed a distaste for generative technology, but more than that a sense of foreboding. I doubt that I have any new opinions here but I find it worth writing down anyway.

I’m generally optimistic about new technology, and I enjoy the advances made since I was a boy. Having my PC boot in a few seconds flat still produces the computational equivalent of a new-car-smell. Watching computations work at super speed at my job is incredible and awesome (duckdb is an achievement). I continually appreciate the speed of gigabit internet.

The progress made in the space of deep learning is monumental as well, and I laud the intellectuals pushing boundaries here. But with everything else, it seems, the grasping hands of profiteers corrupt the space, and I don’t think we have the right social structures to integrate well with generative tech. Much of my opposition comes from the severing of epistemological heuristics we’ve relied on in society, and the need for new ones. Other opposition comes from concerns of labor and art. Ultimately my judgement is that the benefits of generative tech do not outweigh the drawbacks.

Knowing things

Perhaps my greatest fear is the widespread supplantation of trust in knowledge; or more specifically, a weakening of our foundation of how we know things, our epistemology. I probably don’t have to, but I’ll link the rat penis research AI controversy. When we’ve allowed artificial knowledge into the places supposed to be dedicated to human knowledge, I think that’s a problem.

None can research all things with sufficient depth, so there are areas we have to delegate trust to others. The problem is – how can we trust others now, if we don’t even know if what they produce is genuinely a product of their own thought?

Regardless of how well generative technologies operate, their mere existence sows mistrust in other people. At best, generative technologies exceed the capabilities of the person using it giving anyone an unearned air of expertise. While the knowledge they “produce” may be correct, they are not a part of the equation any longer – why would anyone trust or confer any value to anything they say, when everyone has the same tools to create the same knowledge? Knowledge-bearers are made completely fungible.

More likely, generative technology produces poor and incorrect output, but the mass adoption of it makes it increasingly difficult to find good and genuine knowledge, and casts doubt on the output of your abilities; was it you, or was it produced by this flawed utility? How can we know? Worse yet, if you are supposed to be an expert in your field, how many others are there who can judge this? In either circumstance, the esteem that knowledge-bearers once held is eroded and hidden among noise, their legitimacy decimated.

Video generation has gotten to the point where historical document is now questionable. Before generative technology was a thing this was posted to Reddit. It shows a gaggle of children ogling a newfangled thing called a camera, as some passersby obliviously go about their day. It has the same sort of aimlessness that generative videos often produce, and in viewing a single frame for too long one might begin to identify false positives of generative hallucination due to artifacts from the overly compressed format and limitations of the clearly old video technology. If you didn’t know that this pre-dated generative tech, how certain would you be that this was a historical document?

I believe a trend of anti-intellectualism and mistrust in institutions of knowledge will accelerate with generative technologies.

Learning things

It shouldn’t be controversial to say that generative technology is disrupting education right now, and not in a good way. Go on /r/Teachers and witness the debates being held around how best to incorporate generative technology in the classroom – or else ban it. Hear the distress of teachers in Australia, saying that they "[suspect] plagiarism for about 40% of their cohort this year (2024)".

You might say, generative technology is used in the workplace, why not allow students to become accustomed to using it now? You might say, the calculator is the same idea and you use a calculator at work, don’t you?

I say, we’ve missed the whole point of education. School and universities should never have become a hand-out for businesses to receive trained labor for free. The point of a higher-education degree should not be a conversion to future profits. The classic joke is underwater basket-weaving, but in my view the purpose of higher education should not about making money or your future prospects for the type of servitude you will submit to businesses! It should be to learn, for learning’s sake. If you want to learn underwater basket-weaving, then you should have that opportunity. If businesses want trained labor they should pay for it, either by funding your education in a specific field, funding education in general, or doing their own training. There is no culture of teaching in corporations, all knowledge is expected to be had before you walk in the door (I am too young to know if there ever was).

The act of learning is a foundationally human activity, and a technology that reduces the need for this reduces our humanity and potential. Yes I was allowed to use a calculator in university, but they weren’t testing for arithmetic in calculus class, they were testing for our understanding of derivatives, integrals, and limits. Obviously we weren’t allowed to use Wolfram Alpha during our tests despite its availability. I’ve always been poor at arithmetic, but while calculators aren’t helping me get better in that regard, I do understand how it works because I was taught how to do it without one.

But I’m not sure that lower education students will, if they conceive of generative tech as an all-knowing oracle that they can use to submit math problems to (and you know they’re doing it). From the perspective of a lower-education student who can apparently get all answers to any question without effort, and who does not have the discernment to distinguish output quality – why bother learning anything? I would hope that the innate curiosity wins out but now that we’ve converted schools to capitalist training programs there is zero incentive to try hard especially if there won’t be any value returned to you at the end.

Working on things

I’m no economist and poorly read in these areas so obviously take whatever I say with appropriate skepticism.

From the perspective of the ownership class, the most efficient organization of production is the one which minimizes the cost of labor – or perhaps eliminates it outright. It is a machine so effective that the owners can operate it themselves, producing all of the value with none of the cost of labor. Rarely do we witness such a machine, but it is the logical conclusion of efficiency in business.

I predict that generative technologies will only serve to diminish the value returned to labor and funnel more value to ownership.

Companies will write platitudes like “We will never replace employees with AI! We use AI to help our employees serve our customers better”. But replacement should not be the only concern, and not even the first.

If generative technology is better than you, then what separates you from anyone else? Why should companies pay you more? If generative technology is flawed, how can a business tell you’re not one of the ones using the flawed tech? Why would they pay you more when there is such risk involved? The very existence of the technology excuses erosion of the value returned to the laborer.

The common rebuttal is that the world did not end from efficiencies achieved in the past, but rather innovation opened up other opportunities for labor to retrieve value. Instead of toiling in fields, labor moved to work in factories; instead of factories, labor moved to work in offices.

The efficiencies and innovations sought previously allowed us to transition from using our bodies for labor to using our minds, different applications of our human adaptations to produce value for others. But I state that the difference now is that the efficiencies sought by adopters of generative technologies seek to erase even the use of our minds for labor. And not only labor, but art.

There are a few things that we cherish as a higher-order intelligence on this planet (or ought to). A record of historical tradition, and dissemination of history and knowledge. A pursuit of creation and ideas, and finding emotional connections to others through these. We see combinations of these in art, in science, in storytelling, in history, and among teachers and students.

One wonders why the facets of human life that make it special and unique are also the ones that we’ve allowed to be compensated so little.

Nevertheless, the way generative technologies are used today by the money-grubbers target these crucial and quintessentially human pursuits; it’s no longer a question of whether people will find other applications for their labor, but whether the faculties that we exercise to find meaning in our lives will be taken from us and converted into cash for the ownership class.

The jobs that pay the most money benefit the fewest people

Alec Wong — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

…and the jobs that benefit the most people pay the least.

We’re incentivized to benefit the fewest people and wonder why resources are concentrated into the fewest hands.

2024-09-06: I found this expressed in almost the exact same way in a documentary about burnout.

One of the most pernicious things about our current economic system is that the more your work benefits others in an obvious and immediate sense, the more your work has a clear and undeniable beneficial effect on other human beings, the less you are likely to get paid for it.

david graeber

Heavy Rain

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Heavy rain. Wearing a new raincoat. Need to walk to the back of the backyard, several times. Raincoat is excellent. Lisa on the phone?

Chinatown

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Lisa and I in NYC. We see the hill to my grandmas house. A boy like McCauley Caulkin is trying to get up the hill but keeps sliding back down. I say it’s a 30-40ft climb, quite steep.

We come out of the train station near chinatown. Lisa asks me if we had kidney(liver?) dumplings before, I said no but I didn’t care to try it. We double back because I knew there was a car we could use. Seemed like someone’s custom built roadster. We speed off and as we pass a building, the whole side of it starts peeling off.

Contractors

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Cars in the driveway but the driveway is a crumbling ruin of stone and rusted rebar. I’m worried it will fall on our cars. Lisa’s car actually has a ruinous floor above it that will surely fall soon.

Contractors are over my house. They’re a bunch of men my age, but feels like they’re high schoolers. Theres something about them here to paint, something about an eye doctor ordering dark walls for the house. I’m not entirely sure why they’re here though so I’m nervous. I ask if they can take a look at the deck while they’re here.

One of the contractors starts commenting on how miserable ive been treating my car, ive scratched it all up. It’s not true, and I’m offended so I decide to have them leave. They try to stick me with a cancellation fee even though we hadn’t agreed on anything.

At some point, was on the pc and coura was talking about statistical modeling.

IRL context

At this time we were rebuilding our deck.

Robert

Tue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Super vivid. Robert living on campus, and I was expecting to go back to live at UNL for a two year graduate degree. Lisa was here touring the campus. We saw Sara the fitness trainer from PGR, but also another “fitness trainer” who was named steven but he was teaching git and he looked sort of like daniel day lewis with a pony tail. I’m thinking he was an old professor of mine. I stop to ask steven where he was teaching, what his schedule was.

My moms here too, shes driving me and lisa. I look over to see that we didn’t forget lisa. Moms driving my stick shift car.

In Roberts student housing, it’s split into two very small bedrooms that open up into a larger living space. It’s clear hes just moved in, and I have a bunch of stuff strewn about as if I was crashing for a day or so. He was clearly up late and just woke up, asking if id made any coffee. I hadn’t but I rummaged around looking for some to make. A cat found me, presumably roberts cat, it liked me.

Earlier I was looking at gas signs and stuff to gauge cost of living. It dawned on me that I could share the space with robert. I ask when hes got the space and for how long. He said he would have it for about two years which is perfect. I give him finger guns and he says I think I have your solution.

Honda Insight

Fri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt Id sent my honda insight overseas for use elsewhere. It was in india last I remembered, and I called the person wed visited and told them maybe they should just keep the car. They said a manual in india wasnt great (but the insight isnt a manual). But also that it wasnt in India, that they’d shipped it to mexico. I wasnt able to figure out how to get the car back.

Drag

Mon, 22 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In school, doing some sort of visual presentation. I was chosen by my group to dress in a womans hat and dress to present. My parents were there. I was uncomfortable but tried to be a team player. Nevertheless I was very cold and snippy to my teammates talking to me as I tried to get dressed.

I get up to the front and mom gets upset. I sit back down, defeated. The people trying to get me to do this were pikachu face surprised and were saying how it was the worst thing, how they were so sorry it happened.

I listened to the rest of the presentation. Apparently I was supposed to do this and not present on something like physics, because existing bias would give me a higher grade, and so by sacrificing my grade and selection of content I would level the playing field for others who wanted to present on things like this.

Ru Paul was there, perhaps the teacher, and was talking to my mother trying to understand her disposition.

Robin Williams' Castration

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I was robin williams, in a movie but also I didn’t see any cameras. I had to castrate myself. I had a set of pliers and a sharper set of pliers-scissor things. The pliers yanked everything forward and the scissor-pliers cut everything off. it was very easily done, off they came with no resistance or pain at all. I (robin) showed them to the mirror. a lack of blood, the (false) anatomy could be seen.

Robin (i) was deciding if he could go jogging afterwards, he seemed to have a prior engagement.

Acquisition of Valve Software

Alec Wong — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Apr 2034, Reuters

Sam Bankman-Fried, formerly convicted of various counts of fraud and released from prison early in 2027, has purchased Valve Corp. and lays out his vision for the future. “We’re taking the Steam platform in an entirely new direction”, the 51-year-old entrepreneur said. Bankman-Fried will focus efforts on providing a premiere platform for AI-generated content. “There are so many ideas that AI can help us explore”, said Bankman-Fried during our visit to his 100,000 sq.ft. estate, his voice reverberating across the grand hall.

Bankman-Fried intends to allow users to buy AI NFT licenses, which will grant them partial entitlement to revenue produced by their very own AI game-producer. As more players purchase their AI’s generated content, revenue is shared with the user who minted the AI developer. Bankman-Fried will unveil the platform in early 2036, code-named “Project Terra”. Valve will be taken public soon after in Q1 2037, and every shareholder will be given a free AI Developer NFT token. “We want to democratize game production and share profits with everyone”, said Bankman-Fried, pausing briefly to lap caviar-topped truffle ice cream off of his gold-plated cone.

Earliest among these AI-generated content creators was Pocket-Pair, which released the game “Palworld” in 2023 pioneering AI-generated content in video games. Pocket-Pair has since released 22 games of slightly varying flavors generated completely by AI, producing immense revenue at little cost. We reached out to Pocket-Pair for a comment. “Certainly, I can answer that for you! It was hard finding talent, and even harder to keep them paid. Now we just have to make sure our AI servers are provisioned well enough that something good is produced every year. It costs a fraction of a single human developer”, the Tokyo-based CEO Takuro Mizobe’s AI avatar told us in a video interview. Takuro Mizobe himself has not been seen in public for six years, leading to speculation that he may not be leading the company any longer and that there may not be any human employees remaining at Pocket-Pair.

Helldivers

Sun, 10 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I dreamt of a town built into a mountain. Unspeakable horrors were beneath the mountain, and the town had commissioned droids to fight the horrors and keep them at bay.

I ask the local scientist to explain the physics of the darkness spell. Something went wrong, the droids were overrun, the horror escaped. We had to sneak around helldivers style to avoid enemies, some of whom were automotons from helldivers.

Ian and Robert pulled off an objective that covered the town in lava. We got an achievement for destroying another town and the lives within like we did with Last Light. Unsure if this is what we were intending.

Everything was burnt ash after. A couple of boomer men approached and tried to fight. We fought for a time with unloaded long guns, sticks at that point, before they subdued me and I had to use a wide AOE death spell to escape.

Odds Ratios R Odd

Alec Wong — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I received a question about interpreting the exponentiated coefficient of a logistic regression (with a logit link). I don’t usually try to understand the coefficients in terms of odds, because I find them unintuitive. And I never really explored why I found them unintuitive until I was asked about them.

Example

Let’s say we’re in a game show, and the audience is split into two groups 1 or 2. There is some probability group 1 will win a prize, and some probability group 2 will win.

set.seed(1)
N = 1000
group = sample(x = c(1,2), size = N, replace = TRUE) # Group index
p_success = c(0.2, 0.22) # Group 1 and 2 respectively
y = rbinom(n = N, size = 1, prob = p_success[group])
df = data.frame(
    group = as.factor(group),
    p = p_success[group],
    y = y
)

df |> head()

  group    p y
1     1 0.20 0
2     2 0.22 0
3     1 0.20 0
4     1 0.20 1
5     2 0.22 0
6     1 0.20 0

Here we’ve intentionally set the probability of group 1 winning to 0.2 and the probability of group 2 winning to 0.22. Group 2 has a very modest 2% higher chance of winning.

Let’s say we have data from prior game shows; we can fit a logistic regression model to this, and measure the effect of sitting in group 2:

m = glm(data = df, formula = y ~ group, family = binomial(link = 'logit'))
summary(m)

Call:
glm(formula = y ~ group, family = binomial(link = "logit"), data = df)

Coefficients:
            Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)    
(Intercept)  -1.3421     0.1101 -12.186   <2e-16 ***
group2        0.1614     0.1526   1.058     0.29    
---
Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1

(Dispersion parameter for binomial family taken to be 1)

    Null deviance: 1056.3  on 999  degrees of freedom
Residual deviance: 1055.2  on 998  degrees of freedom
AIC: 1059.2

Number of Fisher Scoring iterations: 4

We find that the coefficient for group 2 is 0.1614357. What does this mean?

Without doing much work we can identify that the value is greater than 0, so we might conclude that group 2 raises the chances of winning, slight as it is. But we would like to know by how much.

Interpretation

The linear function of parameters and predictors are transformed to the probability scale using the logit link, and you can understand the equation two ways. Either you have this equation (odds):

$$ \left(\frac{p(x)}{1-p(x)}\right) = e^{\left(\beta_0 + \beta_1 x \right)} $$

or you have this equation (probability):

$$ p(x) = \frac{1}{1 + e^{-\left(\beta_0 + \beta_1 x \right)}} $$

…taking $p(x)$ to mean $p(Y=1 | x)$ (probability of success, conditional on $x$) and $1-p$ to mean $p(Y=0 | x)$ (probability of failure, conditional on $x$).

In simpler terms, you can interpret the coefficients in terms of the raw probability of success, or the ratio of the probability of success to the probability of failure (odds), depending on how you transform them. But they both depend on this $\exp(\beta_0 + \beta_1 x)$ quantity.

I’m most used to understanding these coefficients on the probability scale, the second way. It’s easy to get the implied probabilities from the model summary using the plogis function, which applies the inverse-logit function.

Probability Scale

I can extract the probability of success sitting in group 1 $p(Y=1 | \text{group}=1)$ from the intercept coefficient:

beta_intercept = unname(coef(m)[1])
beta_group2    = unname(coef(m)[2])
p_group1 = plogis(beta_intercept)
p_group1

[1] 0.2071713

We can see that the probability of winning in group 1 is measured to be 0.21. This is exactly equivalent to the proportion of observations where y == 1 & group == 1, the probability of success with group 1.

# You can use the mean to get the proportion of observations where y == 1
mean(df$y[df$group == 1])

[1] 0.2071713

Now, the probability of winning when seated in group 2 is given when you sum the intercept and the beta coefficient, and then inverse-logit-transform this number:

p_group2 = plogis(beta_intercept + beta_group2)
p_group2

[1] 0.2349398

Again, this is exactly equivalent to the proportion of observations where y == 1 & group == 2:

mean(df$y[df$group == 2])

[1] 0.2349398

Nothing magic going on here.

The probability values implied by the intercept and the beta coefficient for group==2, 0.21 and 0.23, respectively correspond roughly to our true group probabilities which we fixed at the beginning of the simulation to 0.2 and 0.22 for groups 1 and 2, respectively.

Our model would suggest that the difference is not significant; while we know the truth because we simulated the values, with this amount of data the observed difference is just not big enough to make a conclusion with certainty. This makes sense to my mind; a 0.02 difference in probability should take a lot of data to measure with certainty, right?

More intuitively, if this was a game show and someone said you could pay to switch seats with them to sit in group 2, you probably wouldn’t pay them too much money because you only gain 2% higher chance to win in group 2.

Odds

How about odds? Expressing effects in terms of odds ratios is common in medical literature, and they measure the relative odds of one treatment level against another. The logistic regression puts this quantity on the log scale, which makes it equal to the linear function of the parameters.

$$ \log{\left(\frac{p(x)}{1-p(x)}\right)} = \beta_0 + \beta_1 x $$

$$ \frac{p(x)}{1-p(x)} = \exp(\beta_0 + \beta_1 x) $$

We can compute the odds for the outcome for each group like so:

# Unname to get rid of names on the vectors
odds_group1 = unname(exp(beta_intercept))
odds_group2 = unname(exp(beta_intercept + beta_group2))
odds_group1

[1] 0.2613065

odds_group2

[1] 0.3070866

Now, let’s remember that an odds number < 1 means that you’re more likely to fail than succeed, and an odds number > 1 means you’re more likely to succeed than fail. An odds is the ratio of the probability of success to the probability of failure.

Here we see that the odds of winning when sitting in group 1 is 0.26, and the odds of winning when sitting in group 2 is 0.31. So in both cases we’re more likely to fail than win, but we’re just slightly more likely to succeed with group 2.

In other words, when group == 1, you are roughly 3.83x as likely to fail than win, and when group == 2, you are roughly 3.26x as likely to fail than win.

Using the odds formulation, we can get a new quantity by exponentiating the beta_group2 parameter directly:

exp(beta_group2)

[1] 1.175197

This is the relative increase/decrease of the odds when you sit in group 2 over group 1 – the odds ratio. To see why this is:

# Log of odds when group == 1
odds_group1 = exp(beta_intercept)
# Log of odds when group == 2
odds_group2 = exp(beta_intercept + beta_group2)
# Rearrange
odds_group2 = exp(beta_intercept) * exp(beta_group2)
odds_group2 = odds_group1 * exp(beta_group2)
# The log of odds when x == 1 divided by the log of odds when group == 2
odds_group2 / odds_group1 = exp(beta_group2)

Finally we show this numerically:

exp(beta_group2) == (odds_group2 / odds_group1)

[1] TRUE

So we can say that our odds of winning by sitting in group 2 is 18% higher than when sitting in group 1; or, the odds ratio is 1.1751969.

Now consider the same situation as before: someone asks you to pay them switch seats so you can sit in group 2, and they tell you it will raise your odds of winning by 18% – that sounds like a lot!! By phrasing it that way I think I’d be willing to pay more!

But I think it’s much more relatable to human nature to think in terms of probabilities; we know the probability of success in group 2 is only 2% higher, we simulated it that way. But an 18% increase in odds seems disproportionately big, and doesn’t really seem that useful to communicate.

The problem with odds ratios

I think that odds ratios are super unintuitive. But I also think that they hide more information than they give, and that your understanding of the situation is incomplete until you know the probability of success.

If I tell you I can change your odds of winning by 50%, is that meaningful to you? How much would you pay to increase your odds of winning by 50%? How much would you pay to avoid lowering your odds of winning by 50%? I submit you can’t make that decision properly without knowing what the probability of success is.

Below is a function that takes a starting probability, and a multiplier to increase/decrease the odds ratio by some factor. It reports what the initial probability of success was, the original odds, the new odds, and the new probability of success:

change_odds = function(p, odds_ratio) {
    odds = p / (1-p)
    # Multiply odds by odds_ratio to get new odds
    new_odds = odds * odds_ratio
    # Calculate new p
    new_p = plogis(log(new_odds))

    cat(sprintf("p was:\t\t\t\t%0.3f\n", p))
    cat(sprintf("odds were:\t\t\t%0.3f\n", odds))
    cat(sprintf("new odds are:\t\t%0.3f\n", new_odds))
    cat("-------------------------\n")
    cat(sprintf("change in p is:\t\t%0.3f\n", new_p-p))
    cat("-------------------------\n")
    cat(sprintf("new p is:"))
    new_p
}

Now let’s say my odds were very good to start – 5x as likely to win than lose. Since the odds are simply p / (1-p), this tells us that the probability of success must be 5/6, or 0.833. To see why, we can rearrange the formula:

odds = p / (1 - p)
odds * (1 - p) = p
odds - odds * p = p
odds = p + odds * p
odds = p * (1 + odds)
odds / (1 + odds) = p

Therefore, an odds of 5 must be equal to a probability of 5/(1+5), or 5/6. What do I find if I increase my odds of winning by 50%?

change_odds(p = 5/6, odds_ratio = 1.5)

p was:              0.833
odds were:          5.000
new odds are:       7.500
-------------------------
change in p is:     0.049
-------------------------
new p is:

[1] 0.8823529

We find that I started off at a very high chance of winning (83%), but maybe I don’t know that figure automatically. Someone tells me that I can pay money to increase my odds of winning by 50%, from 5x to 7.5x as likely to win. So far that sounds great! I might pay a lot of money to do that!

But then we read on and we see that the new probability of success is 88.2%, up from 83.3%. That’s an increase in probability of 5%. Suddenly this doesn’t look like as great a deal, and I am not willing to pay as much money knowing this.

What happens if my odds decreased by 50%? How much would I pay to avoid decreasing my odds by 50%?

change_odds(p = 5/6, odds_ratio = 0.5)

p was:              0.833
odds were:          5.000
new odds are:       2.500
-------------------------
change in p is:     -0.119
-------------------------
new p is:

[1] 0.7142857

This shows me that I now have 11.9% less probability to win. Knowing the change in probability I should pay more to avoid losing 11.9% than to gain 5% probability to win, but the odds ratio changes by 50% in either direction, failing to give me the information to make an appropriate decision.

Now what happens if my odds started off fairly even? I have a 50% chance of winning, or 1-to-1 odds. You tell me that I can increase my odds of winning by 50% again, how much should I pay to do so?

change_odds(p = 1/2, odds_ratio = 1.5)

p was:              0.500
odds were:          1.000
new odds are:       1.500
-------------------------
change in p is:     0.100
-------------------------
new p is:

[1] 0.6

Now, we see that I gain 10% probability of success going from 50% to 60%, and my odds have gone from 1-to-1 to 3-to-2. I should pay more money for a 10% increase in winning than a 5% increase to win, and I should pay more to avoid losing 11.9% probability to win over a 10% increase to win, but in every case above the odds are changing by 50%, with that alone I have no information on how good of a deal I’m getting by changing seats.

Expected value

One way to measure what a “good deal” is is to examine the expected value of an outcome. Our situation is super simple: there’s some probability to win, and someone proposes they’ll increase my odds of winning by 50%, or lower it, and I want to figure out how much money will be worth my while to take the deal.

Let’s say the prize is \$100. If I have a 83% chance of winning, my expected value is \$83 – very straightforward. Clearly, I shouldn’t spend more than \$17 to raise my expected value to \$100, because spending \$17 to get \$100 means I’ve still made \$83; the expected value is not different (even though it’s a guaranteed \$83, but that aside…).

So in this situation, one percentage point increase corresponds to one dollar of expected value and I now have an idea of what I should pay to raise my chances of winning.

Let’s say I have 83% chance of winning and someone threatens to make me lose 10%; how much should I pay to avoid that? My expected value would go down to \$73, so I should pay no more than \$10 to avoid this situation; it’s the same in this direction too, because if I pay \$11 to keep my chance of winning at 83%, my expected value is \$72, one dollar lower than if I’d done nothing.

One percent change in probability is worth one dollar, very simple in this case.

The problem with odds is that a one unit change in odds does not equate to a unit change in probability, but our whole perception of whether a change is a good deal hinges on probability.

p = seq(0, 1, by = 0.05)
odds = p / (1-p)
plot(odds, p, type = 'l', main = 'Change in odds vs. change in probability')

If I’ve told you your odds went from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4, you might understand that you are getting a better chance of winning, and you might even intuit that there is a diminishing return for increasing your odds by 1 unit, but we just don’t think in terms of odds. You have to convert it to probability anyway to figure out how much you should spend to increase your odds by an additional unit. What’s the difference between a million-to-one odds and a hundred-to-one odds?

options(scipen = 999)
plogis(log(1e6)) - plogis(log(1e2))
options(scipen = 0)

[1] 0.00989999

Barely anything, just under 1%. But the odds ratio is 10,000! Clearly you shouldn’t pay anything to someone who says they’ll increase your odds 10,000x from 100 to 1,000,000, as impressive as that sounds.

Below, I scale odds for a large number of odds ratios, and plot how those odds ratios affect the underlying probability (I’m doing nothing more than multiplying an initial odds by the odds ratio, and finding the resuling probability).

p = seq(0, 1, by = 0.05)
ratios = c(0.125, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, 8.0)
change_odds_quiet = function(p, odds_ratio) {
    odds = p / (1-p)
    new_odds = odds * odds_ratio
    new_p = plogis(log(new_odds))
    new_p
}
{
    plot.new()
    plot.window(xlim = c(0,1), ylim = c(-0.5,0.5), asp=1)
    for (i in seq_along(ratios)) {
        newp = change_odds_quiet(p, ratios[i])
        lines(p, newp-p, col = i)
    }
    axis(1); axis(2)
    title(main = "Change in p when applying an odds ratio", xlab = "Starting p", ylab = "Raw change in p")
    legend(x = -0.5, y = -0.25, legend = ratios, col = 1:length(ratios), lty=1, title = "Odds Ratio", yjust = 0)
}

In the above plot, we see that the effect that an odds ratio has on probability depends both on what the multiplier is and what the original probability of success is.

So if I tell you I can increase your odds to win eight-fold, you better know what the probability of winning is before you take the deal.

Additional reading

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Ken Wong for corrections!

sessionInfo()

R version 4.3.2 (2023-10-31)
Platform: x86_64-conda-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS

Matrix products: default
BLAS/LAPACK: /home/aw/micromamba/envs/R/lib/libopenblasp-r0.3.26.so;  LAPACK version 3.12.0

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C           LC_TIME=C.UTF-8       
 [4] LC_COLLATE=C.UTF-8     LC_MONETARY=C.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=C.UTF-8   
 [7] LC_PAPER=C.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C              LC_ADDRESS=C          
[10] LC_TELEPHONE=C         LC_MEASUREMENT=C.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C   

time zone: America/New_York
tzcode source: system (glibc)

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] digest_0.6.34    R6_2.5.1         fastmap_1.1.1    xfun_0.41       
 [5] glue_1.7.0       knitr_1.45       htmltools_0.5.7  rmarkdown_2.25  
 [9] lifecycle_1.0.4  cli_3.6.2        scales_1.3.0     compiler_4.3.2  
[13] tools_4.3.2      evaluate_0.23    munsell_0.5.0    colorspace_2.1-0
[17] yaml_2.3.8       rlang_1.1.3      jsonlite_1.8.8

system('quarto --version', intern = TRUE)

[1] "1.4.550"

Sys.time()

[1] "2024-03-09 10:10:35 EST"

Whale Autopsy

Mon, 04 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Jeff Fang was running a whale autopsy company. Jeff He was cutting as much off of a car as he could in the hope of making it fly. One of the “ugly kids” (who didn’t exist) married someone english and took their accent.

Progressive

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I was working at PGR still, but I guess I was in facilities because I had to fix a sagging wall in a bathroom. I guess there was a lot of water damage or something and there was gunk pooling behind the paint.

Ryan Haffey opened a new position on his team, and Ruth emailed me about it.

I also found that the owner of Nubeigel was selling their cabin/vineyard and we got the inside scoop, so Lisa and I drove out to see it. On the way we crashed into every car on the way like in a video game because the handling was so poor.

We got out of the car at the base of a hill, a vineyard on the slope and the cabin at the top. We walked up the slope to the cabin. It had an open floor plan, much like the one Mark and I stayed at in the adirondacks. It had a ton of holes in it for some reason, like a “skylight” but no glass, I guess it had a wooden cover that slid over the hole for rain or whatever. There was a stove heater, but it seemed to begin below us, in a basement. Maybe someone stoked the fire down below and the heat rose through the floor. There seemed to be a way down on the edge of the room, maybe a trap door. More holes on the side of the house maybe for ventilation.

Prior in the dream, we were vacationing somewhere in Australia. Some celebrity had lost an item out in the tumultuous sea. A local constable or something asked me if I could go retrieve it. I had taken a look on Google Maps for the bathymetry, and saw a trench in the ocean floor. It wouldnt be easy to find.

A tremendous ship turbine larger than a building sat on the coast. The constable changed his mind and said he didn’t want me to get caught in it.

Pork Belly Computer

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I dreamt that I was able to encode a physical piece of pork belly into a computer system. It accurately represented the object’s fundamental nature. We could use it to 3d print the pork belly and it appeared very natural, but we are limited by the technology of our time to fully reproduce the food such that it can be eaten. I presented the work to Ryan Haffey at work.

Tree

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Lisa and I planning a trip. One of our main concerns is traveling with a duffel bag, will it be ok when it rains? We’re expecting torrential rains.

We’re living in the NYC house. We hear commotion outside. A tree limb snapped off one of the trees. Unsure if anyone is hurt. I continue to make espresso, because my contribution is that I can make good coffee regardless of circumstance.

Trees continue to fall as rain increases. Trees start falling against the house. People are shell-shocked, including my father and grandmother, I usher them inside.

I say to Lisa someone doesnt want us going on the trip.

Updating this website (again)

Alec Wong — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve done it! Finally got my website all sorted.

TLDR:

RTFM. The config section of the docs had the answer the whole time; needed to set config to point to my subdirectory instead of the root.
Clear your cache, and the web server’s cache. Band-aid is to open your browser’s network section of the dev tools and disable cache, which apparently also has the effect of requesting fresh content from the web server as well.

Photo gallery

I found a php photo gallery at novaGallery. It’s a very pleasant-looking design that uses PHP to serve images from a folder on the server. It handles caching and thumbnails, and can present full-screen lightboxes for the individual images. It’s reasonably quick once the cache is built.

I had no idea what to do with this at first. I could check my hosting service (Bluehost) and verify that it was running PHP 8 (which I downgraded to 7.4 for compatibility with novaGallery), and running Apache/2.4.58.

The documentation gives the following instructions:

Unzip files
Upload files on Webspace
Copy nova-config/site.example.php to nova-config/site.php
Change settings in nova-config/site.php
Create folders in galleries (used as albums)
Upload your images to the albums
Enjoy your new beautiful photo gallery

This was a little too vague for me, a complete web hosting novice. Upload files on Webspace? Where, exactly? Change settings … to what? Managing my website with Hugo made for some more questions. I figured I’d have to put the thing in the static/ directory, so I just plopped it in there, under a folder photography/.

Nothing.

OK… maybe I’ll change the config – actually it looks like the default url field was a generic option, let me change that to my website.

The page loaded! But the text was still stock, not what I’d entered into the config. In prior updates, the server seems to present its own cache of webpages even when I’ve cleared mine – so I got into devtools and disabled cache. The content was now updated. But the links to the thumbnails were broken, so the images didn’t load; neither did the albums if I tried to follow their links.

I kept at it and engaged Bluehost customer support. I went through the github issues for novaGallery and found these two comments from the developer:

The second one was the kicker, I had to change the config from / to config value /photography/. Well, I should have noticed it earlier because it is in the main page of the setup docs … that one is on me.

Server stuff

The server cache was kinda annoying. I was told by the service rep that renaming the .htaccess file would clear the cache, so I’ll try that next. Bluehost offers a lot of features (none of which I’m really using) so navigating around the various settings was a pain. I’m wondering if I should go with something like DigitalOcean where I can control more of the stack, but how far do I really want to go just to make a website? This seems like a good spot for now, I just want to get to uploading stuff.

I do have to figure out how to manage the photos outside of Hugo. If I put a lot of photos for Hugo to handle, it takes a long time to copy them over to the public/ directory. I think I will have a separate process sync the photos to the website. Additionally, I have to remember to avoid deleting the cache when I rsync the photos over.

Updating this website

Alec Wong — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Finally got around to updating this dang website.

I’m using straight Hugo, built on a WSL Ubuntu, and rsync’d over to my website (why is rsync on Windows so hard?). I might use quarto going forward to render any notebooks I have. For R and python I’m using micromamba to manage installation and environments.

Formerly I’d relied on the R package blogdown to create the website; however, I felt that it abstracted just a bit too much of the process away, I wanted to be more involved in maintaining hugo settings and understanding the system a little better. Don’t get me wrong, I think for those who don’t want to know about hugo or jekyll or whatever, blogdown is a great way to get up-and-running very quickly. I just had a terrible system for managing things that got in the way and lowered motivation to update the website, so I wanted to simplify.

Previously, I had an R Project as the entry point for the website. I would write my content with R Markdown documents, and those would be converted to .md, and then hugo would convert them to HTML, all done using blogdown::build_site().

Now, it’s not like I’d written a lot, but it was still a bit more of a hassle and just enough to keep me from working in the website. I also had a weird system to get around the rsync issue on Windows where I had a github repository for my hugo website, and then I had another one for my public/ directory that I would pull down on my web server. Really messy setup led to lack of a desire to work on it.

I came back to the website this year and tried to boostrap the renv environment and it just failed, erroring out on something simple like MASS or something.

renv bootstrap error

- Installing MASS ...                           FAILED
Error: Error installing package 'MASS':
================================

* installing *source* package 'MASS' ...
** package 'MASS' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
** using staged installation
** libs
using C compiler: 'gcc.exe (GCC) 12.2.0'
gcc  -I"C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-43~1.2/include" -DNDEBUG     -I"C:/rtools43/x86_64-w64-mi
ngw32.static.posix/include"     -O2 -Wall  -mfpmath=sse -msse2 -mstackrealign  -c
 MASS.c -o MASS.o
MASS.c:37:23: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
   37 | VR_sammon(double *dd, Sint *nn, Sint *kd, double *Y, Sint *niter,
      |                       ^~~~
      |                       int
MASS.c:37:33: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
   37 | VR_sammon(double *dd, Sint *nn, Sint *kd, double *Y, Sint *niter,
      |                                 ^~~~
      |                                 int
MASS.c:37:54: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
   37 | VR_sammon(double *dd, Sint *nn, Sint *kd, double *Y, Sint *niter,
      |                                                      ^~~~
      |                                                      int
MASS.c:38:27: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
   38 |           double *stress, Sint *trace, double *aa, double *tol)
      |                           ^~~~
      |                           int
MASS.c:168:8: error: unknown type name 'Sint'
  168 | static Sint *ord;               /* ranks of dissimilarities */
      |        ^~~~
MASS.c:169:8: error: unknown type name 'Sint'
  169 | static Sint *ord2;              /* inverse ordering (which one is rank i?
) */
      |        ^~~~
MASS.c:170:8: error: unknown type name 'Sint'
  170 | static Sint n;                  /* number of  dissimilarities */
      |        ^~~~
MASS.c:171:8: error: unknown type name 'Sint'
  171 | static Sint nr;                 /* number of data points */
      |        ^~~~
MASS.c:172:8: error: unknown type name 'Sint'
  172 | static Sint nc;                 /* # cols of  fitted configuration */
      |        ^~~~
MASS.c:181:31: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  181 | VR_mds_fn(double *, double *, Sint *, double *, Sint *,
      |                               ^~~~
      |                               int
MASS.c:181:49: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  181 | VR_mds_fn(double *, double *, Sint *, double *, Sint *,
      |                                                 ^~~~
      |                                                 int
MASS.c:182:21: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  182 |           double *, Sint *, Sint *, double *, Sint *, double *);
      |                     ^~~~
      |                     int
MASS.c:182:29: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  182 |           double *, Sint *, Sint *, double *, Sint *, double *);
      |                             ^~~~
      |                             int
MASS.c:182:47: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  182 |           double *, Sint *, Sint *, double *, Sint *, double *);
      |                                               ^~~~
      |                                               int
MASS.c:188:18: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  188 | VR_mds_init_data(Sint *pn, Sint *pc, Sint *pr, Sint *orde,
      |                  ^~~~
      |                  int
MASS.c:188:28: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  188 | VR_mds_init_data(Sint *pn, Sint *pc, Sint *pr, Sint *orde,
      |                            ^~~~
      |                            int
MASS.c:188:38: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  188 | VR_mds_init_data(Sint *pn, Sint *pc, Sint *pr, Sint *orde,
      |                                      ^~~~
      |                                      int
MASS.c:188:48: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  188 | VR_mds_init_data(Sint *pn, Sint *pc, Sint *pr, Sint *orde,
      |                                                ^~~~
      |                                                int
MASS.c:189:18: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  189 |                  Sint *ordee, double *xx, double *p)
      |                  ^~~~
      |                  int
MASS.c: In function 'fminfn':
MASS.c:240:5: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  240 |     Sint  do_derivatives = 0;
      |     ^~~~
      |     int
MASS.c:243:5: warning: implicit declaration of function 'VR_mds_fn'; did you mean
 'VR_mds_unload'? [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
  243 |     VR_mds_fn(y, yf, &n, &ssq, ord2, x, &nr, &nc, 0, &do_derivatives,
      |     ^~~~~~~~~
      |     VR_mds_unload
MASS.c: In function 'fmingr':
MASS.c:252:5: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  252 |     Sint  do_derivatives = 1;
      |     ^~~~
      |     int
MASS.c: At top level:
MASS.c:263:26: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  263 | VR_mds_dovm(double *val, Sint *maxit, Sint *trace, double *xx, double *to
l)
      |                          ^~~~
      |                          int
MASS.c:263:39: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  263 | VR_mds_dovm(double *val, Sint *maxit, Sint *trace, double *xx, double *to
l)
      |                                       ^~~~
      |                                       int
MASS.c:280:34: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  280 | VR_mds_fn(double *y, double *yf, Sint *pn, double *pssq, Sint *pd,
      |                                  ^~~~
      |                                  int
MASS.c:280:58: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  280 | VR_mds_fn(double *y, double *yf, Sint *pn, double *pssq, Sint *pd,
      |                                                          ^~~~
      |                                                          int
MASS.c:281:22: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  281 |           double *x, Sint *pr, Sint *pncol, double *der,
      |                      ^~~~
      |                      int
MASS.c:281:32: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  281 |           double *x, Sint *pr, Sint *pncol, double *der,
      |                                ^~~~
      |                                int
MASS.c:282:11: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  282 |           Sint *do_derivatives, double *p)
      |           ^~~~
      |           int
MASS.c:356:12: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  356 | VR_ucv_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |            ^~~~
      |            int
MASS.c:356:21: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  356 | VR_ucv_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                     ^~~~
      |                     int
MASS.c:356:31: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  356 | VR_ucv_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                               ^~~~~~
      |                               float
MASS.c:356:42: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  356 | VR_ucv_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                          ^~~~
      |                                          int
MASS.c:356:51: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  356 | VR_ucv_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                                   ^~~~~~
      |                                                   float
MASS.c:356:62: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  356 | VR_ucv_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                                              ^~~~~~
      |                                                              float
MASS.c:373:12: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  373 | VR_bcv_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |            ^~~~
      |            int
MASS.c:373:21: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  373 | VR_bcv_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                     ^~~~
      |                     int
MASS.c:373:31: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  373 | VR_bcv_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                               ^~~~~~
      |                               float
MASS.c:373:42: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  373 | VR_bcv_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                          ^~~~
      |                                          int
MASS.c:373:51: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  373 | VR_bcv_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                                   ^~~~~~
      |                                                   float
MASS.c:373:62: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  373 | VR_bcv_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                                              ^~~~~~
      |                                                              float
MASS.c:391:13: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  391 | VR_phi4_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |             ^~~~
      |             int
MASS.c:391:22: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  391 | VR_phi4_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                      ^~~~
      |                      int
MASS.c:391:32: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  391 | VR_phi4_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                ^~~~~~
      |                                float
MASS.c:391:43: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  391 | VR_phi4_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                           ^~~~
      |                                           int
MASS.c:391:52: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  391 | VR_phi4_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                                    ^~~~~~
      |                                                    float
MASS.c:391:63: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  391 | VR_phi4_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                                               ^~~~~~
      |                                                               float
MASS.c:409:13: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  409 | VR_phi6_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |             ^~~~
      |             int
MASS.c:409:22: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  409 | VR_phi6_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                      ^~~~
      |                      int
MASS.c:409:32: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  409 | VR_phi6_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                ^~~~~~
      |                                float
MASS.c:409:43: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  409 | VR_phi6_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                           ^~~~
      |                                           int
MASS.c:409:52: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  409 | VR_phi6_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                                    ^~~~~~
      |                                                    float
MASS.c:409:63: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  409 | VR_phi6_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sint *x, Sfloat *h, Sfloat *u)
      |                                                               ^~~~~~
      |                                                               float
MASS.c:428:12: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  428 | VR_den_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sfloat *x, Sint *cnt)
      |            ^~~~
      |            int
MASS.c:428:21: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  428 | VR_den_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sfloat *x, Sint *cnt)
      |                     ^~~~
      |                     int
MASS.c:428:31: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  428 | VR_den_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sfloat *x, Sint *cnt)
      |                               ^~~~~~
      |                               float
MASS.c:428:42: error: unknown type name 'Sfloat'; did you mean 'float'?
  428 | VR_den_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sfloat *x, Sint *cnt)
      |                                          ^~~~~~
      |                                          float
MASS.c:428:53: error: unknown type name 'Sint'; did you mean 'int'?
  428 | VR_den_bin(Sint *n, Sint *nb, Sfloat *d, Sfloat *x, Sint *cnt)
      |                                                     ^~~~
      |                                                     int
MASS.c:466:31: error: 'VR_bcv_bin' undeclared here (not in a function)
  466 |     {"VR_bcv_bin", (DL_FUNC) &VR_bcv_bin, 6},
      |                               ^~~~~~~~~~
MASS.c:467:31: error: 'VR_den_bin' undeclared here (not in a function)
  467 |     {"VR_den_bin", (DL_FUNC) &VR_den_bin, 5},
      |                               ^~~~~~~~~~
MASS.c:468:32: error: 'VR_mds_dovm' undeclared here (not in a function); did you
mean 'VR_mds_unload'?
  468 |     {"VR_mds_dovm", (DL_FUNC) &VR_mds_dovm, 5},
      |                                ^~~~~~~~~~~
      |                                VR_mds_unload
MASS.c:469:30: error: 'VR_mds_fn' undeclared here (not in a function); did you me
an 'VR_mds_unload'?
  469 |     {"VR_mds_fn", (DL_FUNC) &VR_mds_fn, 11},
      |                              ^~~~~~~~~
      |                              VR_mds_unload
MASS.c:470:37: error: 'VR_mds_init_data' undeclared here (not in a function)
  470 |     {"VR_mds_init_data", (DL_FUNC) &VR_mds_init_data, 7},
      |                                     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MASS.c:472:32: error: 'VR_phi4_bin' undeclared here (not in a function)
  472 |     {"VR_phi4_bin", (DL_FUNC) &VR_phi4_bin, 6},
      |                                ^~~~~~~~~~~
MASS.c:473:32: error: 'VR_phi6_bin' undeclared here (not in a function)
  473 |     {"VR_phi6_bin", (DL_FUNC) &VR_phi6_bin, 6},
      |                                ^~~~~~~~~~~
MASS.c:474:30: error: 'VR_sammon' undeclared here (not in a function)
  474 |     {"VR_sammon", (DL_FUNC) &VR_sammon, 9},
      |                              ^~~~~~~~~
MASS.c:475:31: error: 'VR_ucv_bin' undeclared here (not in a function)
  475 |     {"VR_ucv_bin", (DL_FUNC) &VR_ucv_bin, 6},
      |                               ^~~~~~~~~~
MASS.c:249:1: warning: 'fmingr' defined but not used [-Wunused-function]
  249 | fmingr(int nn, double *x, double *der, void *dummy)
      | ^~~~~~
MASS.c:237:1: warning: 'fminfn' defined but not used [-Wunused-function]
  237 | fminfn(int nn, double *x, void *dummy)
      | ^~~~~~
MASS.c:173:12: warning: 'dimx' defined but not used [-Wunused-variable]
  173 | static int dimx;                /* Size of configuration array */
      |            ^~~~
make: *** [C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-43~1.2/etc/x64/Makeconf:265: MASS.o] Error 1
ERROR: compilation failed for package 'MASS'
* removing 'C:/Users/AlecW/OneDrive/Documents/alecsalces/renv/staging/1/MASS'
install of package 'MASS' failed [error code 1]
Traceback (most recent calls last):
13: renv::restore()
12: renv_restore_run_actions(project, diff, current, lockfile, rebuild)
11: renv_install_impl(records)
10: renv_install_staged(records)
 9: renv_install_default(records)
 8: handler(package, renv_install_package(record))
 7: renv_install_package(record)
 6: withCallingHandlers(renv_install_package_impl(record), error = function(e) wr
itef("FAILED"))
 5: renv_install_package_impl(record)
 4: r_cmd_install(package, path)
 3: r_exec_error(package, output, "install", status)
 2: abort(all)
 1: stop(fallback)

IDK man I don’t write C code.

Granted, the lockfile was built using R 4.0.2 in December 2020, so there is probably something to do with the fact I’m on R 4.3.2. Perhaps the compilers I’m using from Rtools 43 are too new? I don’t know. Whatever. I could never get renv to restore my environments when it matters most, here or at work.

I couldn’t be bothered to fix the environment as I use exactly 2 packages so far (ggplot2, dplyr) in the one Rmd file I have. I might try groundhog or something, I think a blog needs a script-level reproducibility solution because packages used in the R Markdown files (or maybe quarto documents) can’t all be fixed to a single date or version over the years. It almost makes more sense to me that each one has its own private library. Or maybe one per publication year.

Anyway.

I had also wanted to build my own photography gallery, but that was a wretched abomination of HTML and javascript, where I generated a list of all the image folders recursively on my end, and then slapped that in the JS script, and had the client loop through the paths, load the .jpg files inside each folder, and then display all of them. It kind of worked, actually shocked that it worked at all. It was kinda slow because it would serve every single image at full resolution at the same time. But it’s not a really sustainable option, and I think I need to get set up with a real content management system. Maybe learn some PHP.

I used to take photos, edit them, and post them to tumblr or 500px or twitter. But I wanted more ownership of the process, so I thought hey maybe I should host them on my own website! I ended up without the motivation to see that through for a long time. Then COVID hit and I stopped going out and taking pictures. Between COVID and website woes, I really have lost touch with my photography routine.

Hopefully in 2024 I can finally get back to publishing pictures!

Flight

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’m resting. Looks like a parking lot or something. Shujie walks by; shes returned to progressive but now shes some chief financial officer type. Shes leading a cadre of workers talking some business stuff about the company.

On a flight. Ask flight attendant if we’re able to pick up radio transmission from jets behind us. Alex shakes his head no — I suppose thats not how light works here. The attendant wants to know the time, and she says “oh thanks, Mickey” to her Disney themed watch.

I’m trying to solve a neural network in my head. This causes issues with reality, because next thing we know we’re adrift in the ocean. A giant ice block floats by, as big as a boat, it looks like a bunch of ice rectangles stacked on top of each other. Later there are more of them, and they’re moving very quickly toward us. We narrowly miss one, and more are coming. Matthew panics and flips out of the raft; I’m yelling at him to help paddle because one is headed straight towards us.

GTA

Tue, 23 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt I was in a gta game. Supposed to be southern California? Or somewhere else maybe on an island. People called it Yuba.

Walked past a store selling the SLF450X jet car from midnight club 2. Amazing to see it up close, and open the cockpit. Walked around the back, it was extremely wide and low to the ground, although this model didn’t seem to have the jet engines in the back, maybe consumer grade.

Walked into this card shop. I was looking at the cards to see if I could figure out where we were. I asked the owner where she was from, she said SoCal but I knew this wasnt SoCal so I looked some more. I think I saw something about a place called Yuba and that made more sense to me.

Went to see someone lisa knew. Their house was dark and many creatures hung on the wall. I was afraid they were cockroaches at first but they were actually the little tropical lizards. I was relieved. I asked if they were hard to get rid of, person said she gave them to her snails to eat but they couldnt keep up or something.

Something made me upset so I left. I fast traveled to the starting area, thinking id get something good to eat maybe. I’m walking across a parking lot when some enemies start trying to snipe me. I get my own weapons out and try to fight back but I must have misplaced my controller because I had to aim and fire using a TV remote. Why did I need a controller in the first place I don’t know. Anyway it was difficult to use a precision gun on the remote so I switched to a mini gun. Dunno why but one dude took a massive amount of fire to kill. Other dudes ran away after the main guy died.

Guns

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt I had borrowed some guns from alex. A cowboy pistol, a makarov looking thing and a garand looking thing.

Id taken them with me to somewhere. Not sure if I was playing at a tuba Christmas event but there were other tuba players. I leave my bag with the guns in someones office for safe keeping, but I didn’t tell them. So next day I had to sneak in there and get the guns.

I manage to get in and out. The person (dean I think) was preoccupied. I’m traveling and meeting up with my mom so we can leave. The “dean” eventually sees me but it’s gus fring from BB and he lets me off lightly. A cab takes me and someone else to where I need to be. I offer to pay for the ride for the other person, but the cabbie starts making things difficult. I just leave.

My mom and I are walking through a corridor. We get stopped so we’re waiting a bit. Theres two other boys and their mothers. I turn around and the one boy is playing with the hammer on the cowboy pistol. I freak out and ask if hes crazy, wtf is he doing? Does he know how guns work? The boys seemed intent on playing with the guns so I draw both pistols and cock them, saying they need to stay back and not touch my guns. Stupid boys are laughing and still messing around. Mom was talking or some stupid shit so I yell at her we need to leave now.

We see gus again, he says something ribbing me in spanish.

Birthday

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Having an event at a big fancy hotel, it’s our birthday and another’s (maybe a cousin). I find some sort of neat peanut beer and id like to enjoy it. We sit and talk about getting speakers to play music, they seem to have space. Not sure if we’re in someones house right now.

Someones asking about taxes. Matthew apparently has begun to be a tax professional because hes answering questions with lisa. Someone says, well you really ought to be hiding money and skirting the law because then the organizations trust you with more money, right? I’m sure lisa disagreed.

We’re gathered in a big central hall. Someone puts on a sort of hologram ar display of a race among us babies. I lose.

We turn to go to the next event. Not sure where it was. Slowly things begin to crumble. The hotel is palatial with grand egyptian statues towering overhead. Not strange at first, but increasingly worrying. At some point my brother and I get separated and I look in horror as he tries to safely get across a walkway that is collapsing. I try to follow once things have settled, he is a small figure in the distance climbing rubble. As I near, he pulls up in his green subaru to drive us away, I pile in, exhausted. The door slides like a minivan though.

Work

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

On a time study. We’re tracking this person. Theyve got a rabbit?

Gathered at work event. Many in attendance. On a big lawn together. Steve and an unknown lady talking about business? Someone says it’s hard to describe to people what we do, in a sort of dismissive way. I look around (suddenly we’re at Ania’s house) and offer that it’s really not, we just maximize what we take from the customer, and minimize accidents (I really meant minimize what we pay for the accidents). Later I also add — to myself — we also maximize customers. I think I saw Nathan Breitch there.

Andrew’s also here. I’m angry for some reason. Mark Motheral is making eggs and some sort of waffle bread thing. Makes me a plate. The eggs were clearly uncooked, raw eggs sitting in a bowl of bread, and apparently I’ve been making off-handed jokes all night and joked that mark couldn’t make eggs. I go to throw the plate out; Andrew says he’ll eat the eggs, and I feel wasteful throwing it out. Mark is offended, he’s doing his best, starts getting mad at me; I apologize and say I’ve been in a bad mood. Not sure if we resolved things.

It’s announced there’s a DND sword fight tournament in another location, so everyone gets up to leave. Except me. I stay behind and begin ripping my arm open with a knife, very depressed. Very graphically opening wounds on the top of my arm. I don’t go deep, I stay at the surface, but enough to draw lots of blood. I wake up. I feel a slight burning pain on my arm even awake for a few minutes.

Advanced climate change has set in. Los Angeles is much colder and tehachapi is frozen over. Me and Lisa’s family manage to take a train down south. We stay for a bit, observing the people spending their last time at the ocean.

I must go back. I return north, and don my samus power suit. The north is overrun with electric enemies including a giant electric worm boss. Luckily I just beat Metroid prime and I’ve got plenty of weapons. I defeat the central boss, and marvel that there are some people still here. Two men come out of a ship with a dolly moving some goods. They don’t notice me. I follow them to some sort of town hall.

Aliens

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Aliens invading. They come at night. I’m on a farm helping out research them. Set timers on a bunch of pull chain lights. Try to get to sleep; I pull out a knitted blanket, large enough for two, and my bunkmate and I sleep on the couch under the blanket, which has the confederate flag on one end.

They’re supposed to come that night but didn’t. We study one of the timers, it was tampered with by an alien.

Next night we wait up for them. They have certain triggers; you cant look at them, you especially cant have beards and look at them. I manage to hide.

One of the other researchers figures out that an alien has stowed away in the bed of a trailer. They’ve figured out it’s going to try to use some of our equipment, pointing something at the moon. We turn on the car and pretend to drive, then turn it off and lie in wait. It stands up out of the tarp and points something at the moon. We assault the aliens. I’m hiding due to my triggers. Unfortunately I cannot hide well enough trapped between two aliens. I’m torn in two as they grab my arms and pull.

Later dream. Playing smash 64 with coura.

Later dream. Playing some sort of rpg, I find out that if I make my character have a ridiculous constitution level I can summon a charizard to pop out of a barrel for free.

Later dream. Something about a kid, has a cache somewhere. I recall gore in the cache.

Later dream. Something about appeasing a girl with dark hair. Something telling me I’m in the 60s. Everyone has a gray towel, but she gets a black one. I’m on edge in case that sets her off.

Much later. Playing bg3 w wetons group. There were statues that gave health and armor; chocolate armor quartered damage taken and couldn’t be dropped when damage taken (I guess it was concentration). We were under attack by some hags; I frightened one of them as I ran, and made it out a door so I could go get the chocolate armor buff. I’d also found a glitch where items given to inactive members of the party activated during battle.

Matt Raid

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

My brother Matt was trying to kill me with Raid roach spray. He would chase me spraying it in my face. Andrew was trying to help me fight him off. Matt would spray Raid into the food I was eating.

Depression

Sat, 11 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Laert and his girlfriend stayed over at my house with lisa while I was away for some reason. I remarked on how cold it was where I was (it was actually very cold, Louisville without heat). I felt weird that he was at our house.

At a church event, people are talking about abortion. I get up and say they’re saying the same things over and over, making big circles with my hands, since I was a kid in church. Some of the older folks deride me. I talk to one of the older ladies about what the communication barrier was with the younger generation. Idk what she said.

Later some events happen. Im super depressed. I’m talking to Allison Horst who worked at Rstudio/posit. I leave without saying much. I grab a drink on my way out. I was going to go home and contemplate suicide. Im crying as i walk out the door, hoping someone would notice and stop me.

Kid Shooting

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt at a halloween party of some sort.

I must have been a kid. Some other kids playing. I borrow a kid’s costume, and some other kid sees me in it thinking im their friend. This is important in a bit.

Theres some movie going on, i think its one of those murder mysteries with Poirot.

The kids get a gun and theyre trying to shoot their friend, the one i borrowed the costume from. They find me and shoot me.

Band

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In band again. This time I’m assigned to play a strange bass or tenor guitar I have no idea how to play. It’s electric too. Austin Kim from high school sits next to me, but it’s more likely Dong meen. The conductor begins, and I’m immediately lost. Dong Meen nudges me, whispering my name urgently. I don’t know the notes or the hand positions, much less where we are. A solo is coming up; Dong Meen takes the guitar out of my hands and starts to play the solo. I want to die, I want something to kill me.

Earlier I think everyone had brought some snacks for the class. I brought goldfish. For some reason I was under the impression it was bring your own snack, so I was upset when someone started helping themselves to my goldfish, but then turned around and saw everyone was sharing everyone else’s food. I shrugged and let it go.

My Fish Twitch

Alec Wong — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Twitch was at least 12 years old, perhaps as old as 14.

Twitch was a centerpiece at my cousin’s wedding – a Chinese wedding – in New York City. Goldfish symbolize wealth, abundance, and fertility in Chinese culture. According to wikipedia, Jinyu (金鱼, the word for a goldfish) is a homophone for “gold in abundance”; therefore, they are perceived as suitable gifts for wedding. Facebook tells me the wedding was in 2011, but for some reason I seem to remember it being earlier. My parents took him home that evening, along with two compatriots.

The central motif of Twitch’s life, if I had to pick one, was resilience. The three fish were in a fish bowl for the start of their lives. It should have been no surprise that two of them died soon after, fish bowls are horrible for a fish like a goldfish, which produces a lot of nitrogen waste. The last remaining fish was Twitch – though he did not go by that name or any name for at least a year while my parents kept him at home. His life at the time consisted of eating and being rinsed out in the sink, as water changes were done by way of “just running the whole fishbowl under the tap to cycle the water”.

My parents came to visit me in the summer of 2012. I was living in Nebraska, having just moved into an apartment off-campus with Robert, my freshman-year roommate, and they wanted to leave me the minivan to use in my final year in college. Unwilling to leave the fish alone they brought him – in the fish bowl – on a road trip from NYC.

He arrived in Nebraska after the 20-24 hour trip. My parents came and left me the car and having no ground transportation back to NYC, they flew back. Now, a creature of the water is not permitted in the airport by the TSA because water is a dangerous thing, so I kept the fish in my new apartment.

Twitch continued to live in the bowl for about a week. At night I could hear him popping at the surface of the water, and research suggested that the fish was not getting enough oxygen. Immediately, I went out and got him a spacious 25 gallon tank all to his own with a bubbler. I named him Twitch Brokenfin, after his aggressive dancing at the glass in want of food and his curiously bent right fin.

Twitch spent the year with me as a senior in Nebraska, and kept me lively company. I fed him peas often, as websites recommended a source of greenery in his diet. I fed him other greens, too, but he preferred peas.

I graduated college in 2013 and made the journey back to New York with my dad. We loaded up the minivan and this time put Twitch in a bucket with a hole cut in the top for an air line to go into. I bought a power inverter for the van to plug the aerator into. His bucket was tucked in just between the seats towards the front of the van.

Arriving at home I set up his tank and decided he was lonely and needed a friend. I went to the local fish store to pick up another fish. I think I named this fish Dale – he was a bit of a menace, chasing Twitch around for no reason.

Twitch and Dale spent the summer with me at home – but I think Dale passed away not long after owing to some sort of neurological disfunction. He was swimming in tight circles, and not upright, by the end.

I worked for a bit in NYC before getting another job back in Nebraska, in winter of 2014 I made a long and difficult drive in snow back to Nebraska for the job. I initially roomed with my then-girlfriend and her roommate, but eventually moved out to my own studio apartment. I spent the year there.

I left Nebraska in the spring of 2014. On my way home from Nebraska I rendezvoused with my now-wife in Cleveland before arriving at home – this would be the first time Lisa would meet Twitch.

I arrived back home in NYC and began preparing applications for graduate school. I was accepted into Cornell to begin in 2015, so we made our way up to Ithaca in the fall. Twitch spend the three years at Cornell with me, and I enjoyed having his tank by my desk in the living room. I would cover his tank with a blanket as I worked late into the night so that he could sleep more comfortably in the dark.

I had field work to do in the summers of 2016 and 2017. It was all summer, from May through September, and up in the Adirondacks so I couldn’t leave fish back at my apartment. I am sure that my landlord/host would have taken good care of him, but I did not want to impose that upon him. The first summer I left the fish in the care of my parents again. I regretted this – I came back to find him at my grandmother’s house, but I think he wasn’t looked after properly in my absence. I was determined not to leave him again so I took him along with me to my field work in 2017.

Twitch had another companion at this point, another goldfish that one of my colleagues had pulled out of a pond. Goldfish are invasive and shouldn’t be in natural ponds – he was brought up with us to the Adirondacks. He didn’t last long – I was limited in space and the 10-gallon travel tank that I had was apparently not enough for the both of them. He jumped out of the tank one day as I was outside doing work.

Twitch kept going as he always did, and joined me after I graduated graduate school to live with my wife in Cleveland. We drove my things over in a U-Haul, and Twitch was in the passenger foot-well, in his travel bucket as he was now very accustomed.

We set up his tank in Cleveland. My wife had a cat at the time – Old Sport – and Sport would sit and watch the tank as a cat would, deeply and undeterred. I pulled up a chair closer to the tank so Sport could watch Twitch in more detail, and I could see how he reacted. Bad idea – Sport would lunge at the glass to get the fish, once almost tipping the tank. I didn’t let him have the chair after that.

We lived in one apartment, then rented a house, then bought a house in Cleveland. I believe Twitch enjoyed his time at our first house. Moving into our second house in 2018, the layout and general tilt of the house precluded his placement anywhere sensible, so we had him in the dining room. I wanted him in the living room but the floors were not level and his tank would have leaned too far over for comfort. This was the only level spot. At first he looked great.

But this period was the only time I think Twitch appeared genuinely dejected. Instead of floating in the water column, we would often find him floating in the corner of the tank. Twitch had always had some swim bladder issues, but usually they resolved – this time it seemed more like a great boredom. There was, unfortunately, very little stimulation in his space in the dining room. It was rare that we would spend time in there, as we usually took our meals in the living room just beyond. I think he was suffering from a lack of stimulation. I would sometimes set up my laptop and play some aquatic scenes just for anything new to come across his view.

His health began to worsen at this point. He began developing what appeared at first to be a bump, then a larger bump, then eventually what amassed into a tumor-like growth on his head. I looked it up many times and couldn’t find anything that matched the description other than a neurofibroma, a benign tumor. Images, at least, were consistent with what I saw.

We moved into our new house in March/April of 2022. This time we were able to have him in the living room and he seemed much more animated, and I got him a new 30-gallon tank, extra tall. No longer did he float in the corner, he slept in the center of the water column. I believe he would continue to be healthy despite the tumors.

The tumors grew larger over the year, and he developed more growths on other parts of his body. Eventually during 2023, he developed ulcers that became black with – I’m assuming – dead tissue. Despite this, his behavior, appetite, and resting all appeared as normal as can be for the fish – like I said the fish was resilient as all hell. Not once did he ever appear to be in pain or discomfort. I attempted all sorts of treatments including Melafix, Sulfaplex in case it wa fungal, Maracyn in case it was bacterial, a protozoan remedy, and aquarium salt.

The black areas continued to spread and deepend, including into his tumor on his head, until eventually he no longer was able to swim upright, floating on one side after swimming for a little bit. He seemed tired, and stiff either from inflammation or a weakened musculature. It was at this point I decided to euthanize him.

Twitch lived long, and was my companion for what was essentially my entire adult life. He was a constant, a reliable constant, and gave me something to care for and nurture each day. He grew large, sometimes without my realizing it. He was about the size of my hand. I did not cry for any of my other fish, perhaps owing to their transience, but I did cry for Twitch – he had an outsized effect on me for a goldfish.

Hospital

Sun, 24 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Went to the hospital. Not sure the reason. One of the nurses is a guy, doing my preliminary stuff. He asks if I’ve noticed anything unusual. I say no. He then shows me my chart, and points to one of my tests, and says something like “well this is obviously unusual” in a snarky way as if id failed his little test. I got mad, and stormed off.

I decide I need to be seen by the doctors so I apologized profusely to the nurse, even writing down my apology on paper before going to him. Something along the lines of “I’m a bit of a hypochondriac and as soon as I got medical insurance I started to go to the hospital for every little thing, so I’ve been trying to rein that in but your comment isn’t helping.” He begrudgingly helps me out, it’s several hours later and quieter in the room. I ask his name, since I never got it before. He says something like it’s too late I’ve burned that bridge, so I just look at my form. Looked Indian, started with a C, like chandrathan or something like that.

Tooth

Sun, 17 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt my tooth cap fell off again. I dream this fairly regularly. I go to Progressive’s dentist, and I ask if I am supposed to be feeling anything in that tooth. She says no, of course not. I feel the empty uncapped tooth, it has the rough squishy texture of pulp.

The doctor readies her equipment. I’m concerned about anesthetic, but she’s looking at X-rays and I shouldn’t need it. Why she’s drilling, I’m not sure, the cap just needs to be reattached.

She leaves to do something. We’re actually on a rooftop, overlooking a street, with a highway overpass beyond. The street is dirty, and filled with shambling zombie-like homeless. I hear someone remark about some new policy NYC made that removes a lot of money from the street, repelling the homeless. It doesn’t seem to be working.

Down in the street someone is walking amongst the homeless. He looks like The Man With The Golden Voice from the internet. I’m convinced it’s not an issue. One of the homeless pulls out a modern arrow and stabs the man in the head with it, right down the top of the skull. He pulls it out and tries to fight back, but collapses. I am scared and crying, and as the dentist returns we explain what happened. He worked for progressive apparently.

Sad portion of dream later about contemplating suicide.

Assault

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I was in school. It was winter, but early winter. I was wearing my super heavy coat with the fake fur lining the hood, from high school. I had it all zipped up and my rabbit fur hat on too.

A bunch of black kids started making fun of me, saying it wasn’t that cold, what was I gonna look like when it’s -10. I said, if I want to be warm, I’m gonna be warm!

Went home. Some little asian kid jumps me, and I judo flip him into the ground. He’s showing a fencing response, so I call 911. Interestingly enough I can recall seeing the digits 911 appear on my phone; usually digits are scrambled.

EMTs arrive, and I tell them how I was attacked. Police never show up. They cart away the kid. One of the EMTs must have become my friend because he decided to stick around in case I get assaulted again.

Art Show

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

At an art competition. The first contestant does something cool with spray paint in the time allotted. Some sort of technique allowed him to spray a watermelon texture onto a bicycle. It dried up super fast into the final color.

The next contestant was doing something crazy. A pair of pilots were drawn beforehand, and she was going over some details with a black marker. She was spending too much time on the details. She was tracing very faint details like numbers reflected in the pilots helmets from the dashboard. Time was up, and she hadn’t even begun painting. Somehow she gets extra time to do the painting, must be in the rules. One of the announcers makes a joke, and I say “viscous mockery!”.

We’re walking through town. Looks like a fairly desolate rural town. One of my friends says that we are not connected to the internet, so we better not trigger any transitions to other levels because we couldn’t load them. We say hi to a lady who is glitched out and has no head. We’re in a building I recognize as my own, because I see my compost bucket. It is not my home, just my building.

Battlebit

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Dreaming I was inside a Battlebit match, but it was real. The enemy was swarming our position. I call a supply drop down as last resort cover. I throw grenades at several enemies, does not stop their approach. As they near me I have no choice; I pull out a grenade and frighten them off with it, but it explodes in my hand. Knowing I’m done for, I pull out two more grenades and put them at the top of my head. I feel the first one go off, but not the second; presumably I’d died.

Had to find someone to sit next to, like a school bus. A girl named “Open” had an empty seat; I saw a coat that belonged to me in another seat so I sat there instead. The guy who eventually sat next to “Open” called her something equally dumb by accident, she got offended.

Mom going on about buying me a new car after I was talking about driving in the UK. Andrew driving an old CRV. But the spare tire rack doubled as a cake serving tool. It’s our last day and he’s driving us to the airport. Or I’m driving a minivan I can’t remember; I stop at a set of benches so we can eat. All the benches are at an angled up in the air, and the circular tables are lifted in the air as well.

Costco

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Dad visiting, wanting to do something so he puts on the video game Midnight Club, but not any one I’d ever played. I yelled at him, we were talking about a mathematical representation of the thrust of the video game car. Something about two motorcycles strapped together, he was suggesting the engine for the second be in a normal position and I got upset, it didn’t matter because it was just a math representation and didn’t have a real meaning.

I was driving one of the cars with Lisa, we picked the Tehachapi map and we’re getting on the highway. I drove toward the stylists sunrise and accidentally off into the desert.

I worked at a pizza shop, cheap pizza where you went down a cafeteria line ordering toppings. On my day off I went to Costco equivalent. There was an annoying boy there, I tied him up in an arm lock.

There was a gun demonstration/safety class my family attended. It was BYOG, and we brought mostly water guns with us. I was looking for something smaller for my mom to use, she was toying around with the Monster model from our youth, much too big. After a moment lost in thought, the class is silent and I realize the instructors were waiting for us for some reason. Okay, I pay attention. They have some podunk kid representing them to give a demonstration. He’s carrying an m4 and is showing no gun safety at all, flagging the crowd and his partners on stage repeatedly. For his demonstration, he throws garbage up into the air and he shoots it on full auto. Eventually he’s shooting way too close in my direction, but the bullet velocity seems really low because it definitely should have hit me or something near me. I safety squint in case, wanting to protect my eyesight.

Marvel

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Aliens seem to have invaded. I see crop circles in my backyard, more like tears of the kingdom impressions in the grass. I saw a small little drone flying around. There’s nothing definitive yet, publicly, but I’m conversing with a neighbor who also saw the drone, and saw the same shape. Sort of a twitter-bird shape with the head instead looking like an old-time camera with three lenses. It hovered in place, watching me. It was supremely unsettling.

Next morning I go to check on the cats. Bbg is missing her tail, or part of her tail. On closer inspection, it almost looks like her tail was duplicated, and she was roughed up a bit but she still had her tail; there was just another one on the floor next to her where she lay. In any case, she was hurt so Lisa took her to the vet.

I anxiously call about her condition, Lisa anxiously snaps that she’s working and the vets are doing their job too. Eventually we get bbg back but now I am too unsettled knowing that aliens or something are watching our house and hurting our cat.

Skip

We receive a fedex package from a truck. I’ve gotten some ally somehow, and we go outside to look at the truck. The “organization” fucked up the route and the REAL fedex truck comes around the corner. I hear cursing as the ruse is undone, the “organization” becomes known to us. What they’re doing, I don’t know. Is there infighting? Are they fighting the aliens? I think so.

I’m given a weapon. About the same size and material of the shokz headphones. It has two ends, one end supposed to be much more powerful. We come under attack. The organization fends off the attack, but in a movie moment I find my weapon was ineffectual to begin with; it squirted water, and the high-power setting squirted water farther. I’m upset that I could not defend myself.

We’re now privy to the secrets of the organization. We find that they have been intending to clone people for some use.

Finally we find Tony Stark, the head of the organization. Hes flying around and on a phone call with some sort of customer support expressing displeasure with some sort of outcome.

Min

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Hanging w min and Andrew. In Nevada, mins got some sort of ministry/army stuff to do. Army is in the desert because they’re cleaning up old military waste equipment. Looks almost post-apocalyptic, there’s old green machines piled up high in the sand under old highway overpasses.

Min tells us about his troop leader / pastor who has an activity for us. It’s a large invisible maze, and we are given sand to throw on it to navigate. Every once in a while the maze is moved.

We must’ve gotten bored of that because we moved on to a knock-off Zelda game where you play as the dragon. I jumped into water as the fire dragon and died, I decide it’s dumb and go outside.

Eyeball

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt I had a bullet fragment lodged in my eyeball. It wasn’t painful, but it was annoying. I had tried to get it out with a magnet the second day, but it didn’t come out, the cornea had healed and it was just pushing against the cornea. I stopped and figured a doctor should do it.

I visit some places I “typically” go (none of which I really typically go). One place hired young summer teenagers to do everything; ok for picking up medicine maybe but not for surgery. The other place took a look at my eye and asked if I had cataracts; no, I said, it’s actually a bullet. They placed some device on my eyeball, and began to extract it. I was concerned but let them do it. I was having second thoughts and wanted the Cleveland Clinic to do it but never did it. Dream ended before it could be removed.

Sephiroth

Sun, 20 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

At a conference with Cornell colleagues again, hybrid with a school summer camp. I fly in to Bayside where it’s being held. Cat, Gerardo, DJ, and Angela are all there.

I’m the morning we take a minivan to our destination. A king and queen ant were wandering the cabin, but they both really looked more like termite queens, where the “king” had big pincers, and the queen just had short pincers. I remark on this to Angela when we see her.

At the event there are a lot of smart kids attending like it’s a summer camp. We’re having a meal at a restaurant, and it’s mixed seating. DJ is near me, and a kid. We ask the kid, if this cereal square was enlarged like 100x and you took a bite, would it be more or less flavorful than the single one? (The original question DJ asked of me was whether when you shrunk a t-shirt down to the size of a cereal square, would it be more or less flavorful than it started, but I didn’t want to confuse the kid).

After gathering they mention SSB is going on somewhere so I leave to go. Beforehand I wash my hands in the bathroom. There are many faucets with a single trough to drain.

Instead of SSB, we are instead role-playing a fight. I’m role-playing sephiroth, and my enemy is some dude with two large sickles making a sort of scissor with them. I role play dodging his attacks, but since I don’t know the rules I shout that I’m “dodging” when I do it. I get hit by the blades, grazed just barely, and we stop to take note of the damage on my character. People start looking up how much base health Sephiroth has. I ask after the first round and I get hit whether I get invincibility frames on my dodge or if I should just avoid the blades altogether. Nobody seems to care. I’m trying to dodge all the attacks because I know at this point the enemy is undefeatable for story reasons, and I need to save HP for later.

Miscellaneous

Sat, 29 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We’re in CA with Andrew. We are playing a milsim, and Andrew’s leading us to some objective.

Playing scrabble with my family. Matthew puts “gleoc” down and I’m like, “what, the beast from Zelda?” He’s like yeah, and I storm off, throwing a piece across the parking lot(?), muttering that fine I’ll start playing animal noises next. It wasn’t even spelled right, it’s gleeok. I try to find the piece but I cannot, I only find matchbooks on the floor. I figure the item might have gotten smushed by now. Someone else’s mom is screaming at her kids while they get into their car.

Work event. I’m in samus’ suit trying to figure out what to do. I jump from a high height onto an SUV and die. I respawn. I’m moving around, and I come up behind Jenna doing some work. She didn’t notice me even in the power suit, so I back away so as not to startle her. I’m running around trying to shoot bats with my arm cannon.

I run into Megan and she recommends a book on autism for my brother. I say he would be offended because he’s not on the spectrum. Someone else chimes in saying something about “ambliant punishment forgiveness”. This is not a real phrase. I made a joke that made me sound really autistic.

On a rooftop, perhaps a party. We threw scraps off the side of the building into the ocean below, orcas were eating the scraps. We’re putting away the tarp that served as a tent. I get caught in it and it pushes me over the side of the building into the water. Fortunately a telephone line was there and I pulled myself out. I was thankful that Kevin and I had securely fastened the line into the wall.

Elevator guy and cat There was an elevator operator who was like an NPC, doomed to forever operate the elevator. There was a sequence of events though whereby you could drop someone in a dumbwaiter slot and they would fall under the building and you would get a cute baby version of that someone. So I found a mean cat and and scruffed it, took it to the dumbwaiter, and placed it in. The mean cat was sent underneath the building and out came a cute cat in a baby bonnet.

Drag queens metro card In NYC. I get a metro card, which has a lot more documents attached than I remember. Some drag queen remarks that I’ve bought into the biological identification scheme. Mildly concerned, I remark that I’ve had these since I was a boy.

Time Travel

Fri, 07 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In a dorm. Walking to my room. EMTs are there, want to see me. They load me onto a stretcher, place a pair of bright orange boots onto my legs, which immediately chill ice cold and freeze in place, locking my legs. We stay and talk for a while.

Second part. Romeo + Juliet on set. Tarantino directing. One of the actors flubs his lines (I have the script) while he pilots a drone to creep on a girl. I ask Lisa if Tarantino directed it this way. Anyway they bring guns out with a spotlight on the gunbearer, I guess Romeo and Tybalt are going to duel. Or something.

It’s 1967, although I have no reason to think it is. I am trying to fix some electrical panel. There is a wire hanging loose with visible blue electrical fire coming off of it. I’m thinking I should be very careful when touching it, but when I grab it it takes hold of me and I cannot let go. I am fading to white while I struggle against the electricity. When I finally release myself, I am in the future, 2167 or something.

Third part. In the future. People can all astral project. I can immediately astral project too, I attempt it. I return to my body. I’m in someone’s house. I look outside , it is blustery and dark but I can see some very old people in chairs outside, apparently projecting themselves. People are arriving home. A Latin woman in a maxi dress is projecting. I reach out to touch her, she grabs my hand; apparently you can touch other peoples ghosts and are aware of them, and they are aware of you.

NY Dream

Fri, 16 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Lisa and I visiting NY. Were in flushing, and were looking to go to the library. We get off the subway at a particular place — we’re in flushing alright, I remark.

We find my grandmother, she asks if we’ve gotten the item from the library (there’s some sort of quest item that attaches to your wrist when you go). No I say, because we wanted to get the specific one from flushing, and not the starting item. Maybe this one was better.

I try to use Lisa’s phone to locate the library. I get frustrated, I can’t figure out how to use her phone. I use my phone instead, and pull out the maps to show it’s just ahead.

Whereas I said we were in flushing, it looked more like the south street seaport mixed with Chelsea piers, because we passed some giant aircraft carriers. They were moored just where the street intersection ended, and the crosswalk was netting made out of thick marine rope. Some squares were just open and you could fall through to the ocean below. Lisa commented on how dangerous this was. I made sure I put my keys in my backpack, I could hear them jangling as I crawled over the netting, trying not to fall through.

We went up to one of the ships. Somehow I needed to drop a few feet from the netting off of the crosswalk. There was a woman from the navy offering tattoos. Lisa wanted us to get a pair tattoo, one half of a pair of wings on our calves, so that if we stood together it was one pair of wings.

Chinese Dance Competition

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Sort of a dance competition. One girl dances and shatters her front teeth. They’re held on like windshield glass; she presses against them to show me. Her black lipstick stains the shattered pieces. She’s made up like a gerudo, with heavy eyeliner.

Another girl goes next with someone I know from High School. They win the competition. First girl recognizes her skill, and is a good sport considering her condition and she was favored to win. The boy who won puts his hand up against mine, it looks like he had his ring finger removed and transplanted onto the same hand between his thumb and forefinger.

The Navy

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Neighborhood of some sort. Logitech security cameras can show stats of individuals. One dude arrives and begins terrorizing the neighborhood, his strength stat is super high (43, apparently super high). His appearance is incongruent; a lanky white boy who carried an electric guitar around.

In the navy. We’re on an exercise pulling fishing gear owned by the government. It’s some sort of deep sea fishing operation. I fall overboard. Fortunately the swim back is not difficult, but I’m motivated to get back because they discharge sailors who fall overboard. The captain is a hard ass.

An old classmate (Austin Kim?) with someone else arrives by motorcycle. We catch up. He is older, middle aged, wearing a suit.

Theaters and Monsters

Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Watching a theater play with family & Lisa. The stage has a dark muddy pool in the front, which the actors swim through, but when an electric current is run through it it becomes solid. I remark on it to my mom.

Strange entity after me. Some fleshy monsters pursuing me. I become invisible and intangible somehow, and float past them, rising through the ceiling. Someone who looks like Natalie Larin appears on each floor facing me as I rise through several floors. I stop to talk to her. Says something about a child who had some sort of nervous disorder.

A battle is going on in the street. I’m hidden behind some barricades that seem useless, seems like a fine mesh fence with a turret mounted on an extensible boom. Our group has surrounded another.

Andrew's Lab

Tue, 16 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Andrew constructing a crazy underground lab. Several stories underground. Single wide shaft goes down. We visit “the post office” where there was a single computer and router, and took 5 min to get down. Matt and dad were there too. Andrew wanted me to spend lots of time doing some coding on this project (can’t remember what the facility was for).

I ask if we could forward some ports so I can work remotely since it takes so long to get down there (and secretly I’m afraid of what Andrew awoke in the depths). Or if he was okay hosting the code on GitHub so I can push remotely. I ask if the post office was the only place down there. Andrew chuckles and says he didn’t want to reveal everything at once.

I look out the slats of the window, a brick retaining wall covers most, as we were about garden level, but I can see greenery. Suddenly a loud rushing noise comes from the shaft and we are instantly buried in rubble. Thankfully my dream ceases before I can simulate any suffocation. Huge GTFO or back rooms vibes.

Reunion

Mon, 15 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Giant high school reunion in a swamp.

See people like Brian Jung, Julie Kim, other random people. Julie Kim in particular says hi and it’s awkward. Some of the popular kids were living in tents in expensive cities. I remember realizing that that could be a possibility now.

I give out some computer puzzle, evidently I’m leading some of this. One guy figures it out, it’s a puzzle that prints out some ascii art of a halo scene, and when zoomed just right the moiree makes it look 3D. Others are having trouble because they have macs and I coded it in git bash on windows.

Some guy looks like Sam benya from work but is probably that tall lanky kid from middle school also played the trombone, think his name was Daniel C.

Some sort of game later where we’re reading lines or something. I get into a irritating argument with another person, possibly another leader. Very public and awkward.

Later walking back for meal, apologize to the guy. There’s some food in a case, the attendant asks if anyone wants “weed meat” or something, looks like a Dead Sea turtle. Everyone or most everyone says no. A girl ahead of us has the body of a sea turtle, I could see her short tail swaying.

Bow and Arrow

Sun, 07 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Some sort of chemistry exam coming up. Asked Matt how he did, since he took it earlier. I don’t think he was optimistic. I was hoping my AP chem would kick in for it.

Dreamt in some sort of puzzle game like escape the backrooms. Pulled the wrong lever and half a dozen monsters came out to kill me. Level reset, and I pull the right levers.

I ask a person nearby if I could take their simple bow from their bag, like the one from the Forest. I go through the newly opened door.

I come into a large auditorium and sit down. A teacher of some sort comes down the aisle and is asking everyone to shoot the dog that she has on a plate; high score is 200 hits. I’ve only got 2 arrows and we can’t retrieve them so I feel underprepared. People are catching other peoples arrows as they’re shot. One guy volleys at my aisle, shooting from the back to the front. I slouch down the in my seat to avoid getting hit.

The “teacher” with the “dog” comes by and I remark on the cruelty, but the “dog” is really just a rubber ring with holes in it for the arrows to stick into.

Space

Mon, 17 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Daniel hahn drinking a sprite. Something unfair.

Andrew, dad and Matt trying out a game I found. Must have been futuristic VR.

We’re astronauts. I’m testing out whether they’d have the heart and skills to save someone in space or something, but it changed to whether they can save themselves. I put a button on their controller to slow down the velocity of their derelict, and a twist to stop the rotation. I was supervising; Andrew and dad stopped spinning, but Matt was having trouble. We joked for a moment until his situation spiraled out of control, and his craft broke apart. He was headed toward the planet, we were in fairly low orbit. I awake.

Life After Death

Sun, 16 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Prior; driving my car through mountainous terrain in the rain. Started up a path through a switchback but Google suggested it would take 3 months to get by. Able to reverse time so I can get back to where I started. I recall a beach, boardwalk.

For some reason I believed we were dead. After death is a shadow realm, a mirror of the real world.

I’m at home with my family in ny. Not just my family though, some others there too. Someone like Ivana? It’s thundering out, and we’re concerned about electrocution. We know some advice is to minimize contact with the ground. I jokingly lay face first on the ground. Other times we’ve got one foot on the ground, one in the air and we’ve joined arms, as if some sort of lightning-proof pose. I am concerned about my PC. I’m in my underwear.

The neighbors are moving, we can hear the scraping of chairs. They start moving couches in torrential rain. They start and stop, often having to rush back in to shelter. After some time I realize one of them must have some ability to reverse their own time as well — they can experience the rain, its starts and stops, and time the opening to get to their vehicle. They shout at us that we should be helping. I run out there, as some sort of inspirational music is playing, and tell them what I realized, congratulating them. The one who could rewind time looked like Carla from scrubs.

Later, separately: some train thing, schedule operators.

Later I was Arnold swarzenegger and I was getting cast for a role or something and I was eating chips and dip while I waited. Some people were coming so I decided to move the food into the break room instead of in the acting space.

I Got Shot

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt going to another Cavs game w dad and Matt and mom. Left my Cavs hat at home. Alena mentioned via teams I could find another hat downtown but that’s too expensive and wasteful.

We park in a nice area. Looks like Willoughby. Andrew’s in town too. We’re moving some stuff from a store or something I use his car. It’s an old 90s manual, and reverse gear needs to be floored to go. I drive his car out but forgot how to use reverse gear and it rolled off of an elevated parking platform. No damage to the car though. We move on.

I come back to my car. Some Hispanic guy is talking on the phone about an (Acura) Integra, I confront him but not directly. I talk to him in Spanish, but luckily there are subtitles so I can keep up. I gather he’s not a bad dude and isn’t trying to steal my car.

I go away and come back to my car, perhaps after the game. I find the nearby car shop owner began chopping it up in his shop, I make a scene in front of other customers, I want it put back together and repaired, im furious.

Some woman recorded me saying some things, and tries to defame me. I ask why she’s recording me. She shrinks away. I was recorded to say something like pain is a deterrent for petty theft. I don’t remember saying that.

Later, hanging around what looks like Delaware. Some bearded white guy, apparently a gamer starts firing on everyone with a rifle. He’s aiming for me, I get shot in the leg. Some PSA goes out about how the shooter needs to reach a certain planet in some game, and hacking will not be tolerated. Felt like this was the game somehow, and PVP was normally off but this guy managed to deal damage to me.

Fortunately there is a regional hospital and I limp my way in. I tell them I’ve been shot by a high powered rifle, and I need treatment. They’re blasé about the whole situation, but I guess my leg doesn’t seem too bad off. They review my chart as I’m standing there, commenting on my stomach condition. Commented on some breathing data collected, showing things like CO3 in the composition, must not have been collected right.

They attach a giant monitor pad to my waist and lead me to a waiting room with several others. One is the shooter, whom I immediately call out, fortunately a plainclothes police man was there waiting too, I tell him he shot me and he’s trying to steal my car as he bolts out of the hospital.

Lisa

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We had been watching movies and the last movies we decided to watch were the marvel movies, I was disappointed by that. My bunk bed was on the precipice of a cliff, and I was laying face down on a plank of cliff just wide enough for my body. I was googling marvel movies to see which ones we had to see to understand the whole thing. Dreamt I saw the thing from fantastic 4 as if a scene from the movie.

Prior dream, there were riots, a rebellion, police were forcibly apprehending people’s phones and beating them for it. I was with the people, but almost a neutral party. Before the riot I was asked by some tik toker to shoot some golf thing on camera; I said I was aiming for the big O in the sign across the way, and that I’d fuck it up because I don’t play golf. I had to hit a wide wiggly disc, so if course it went nowhere. Laughs.

The police came later. We fought, and I believe we were cornered at the end. This must have been a rural area because I pleaded with the police about their shared history with the citizens as long-standing Americans, unlike myself, there seemed to be some cooling down.

Titanfall

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt Lisa and I prepping for Christmas. On line waiting to mail letters. Letters sent by teams now. Long line through narrow corridor. Get to postal agent and she informs us of the absurd price. I get mad. We return home through thick snow. Neighbor is a strange place.

I’m driving my Corolla. Near grandmas apartment. Something bad happens and some crazy fucking lady tries to get into my car. I speed away up the hill, stopping between two people. I convince them to find out what happened with the scary lady. Hae Kim was being trafficked in a block of ice.

We end up finding where Hae Kim is (supposedly murdered) and can rescue her. She’s down in a ice mine, we could totally go save her if we wanted because everyone else is on leave and nobody is working.

We slide down the ice tunnel, and everything is melting. We’re dumped out onto a river, and our tech locates hae in the water. She is alive and we save her. We bring her to land, where the Titan from Titan fall 2 was there. We power up his battery (someone says 39% just enough to translate emotions) and the Titan starts talking. Suddenly he falls over and fucking dies. Credits roll, this was the game Titan fall 2 all along.

I turn to Lisa who is incredulous at how abruptly the game ends. I note trouble in development causing a rushed product.

Vasectomies

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Vasectomies needed to be performed regularly, and by oneself. So I did it. We were on a train or something, and I used a razor blade to try and do it, but I cut myself too deeply. I find some weird bottle of disinfectant and try to find a doctor.

COVID

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Scientific group working on Covid, but very unscientific and really just a bunch of older ladies.

Left this house and went down a rooftop area. Landed near a car on a tight roof and figure the car had to have gotten there somehow, found a slope down.

Some guy comes out threatens me with a gun. I knew he wouldn’t shoot me, so I continue on like nothing. He gives up, and becomes friendly.

A group on the rooftop is trying to damage rats like they’re enemies in an RPG. I try my hand; I do next to no damage to the rat. Someone else has trapped a rat under his hand and it’s scrambling and scratching to get out.

I look at some Covid guidelines and see one of the recommendations is to be aware of the angels, and it felt very nightvale.

Matthew Wedding

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In winter. I had my old insight and bad winter tires, sliding around all over the place. Needed to turn around and I just did it by spinning.

Lots of people I don’t know. I’m alone basically except for his friends.

I’m depressed. Not sure why I’m there to begin with. He leaves with his friends, I’m moping around the crowd that remained. A girl orders a peppermint tea. I replace the tea carafe even though this is like a gas station deli, and I find the tea bags were thrown in unopened.

Space

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Drifting through space outer wilds style, nothing but my suit and its thrusters.

I’ve taken it off because it was hot, have to rush to get it on because a friend notified me we had to land soon.

In the distance, a large skeleton not unlike the anglerfish, with a white hole in its mouth. Apparently we needed to find some organism that gave us something to get into the skeleton.

Landed on the planet, I’m sneaking around with the friend. Come up to a bunch of thugee cultists around a railway. Wait in darkness until they leave. Ants swarming our little alcove. My friend decides to have lunch, shows me that they added carrots to their soup. Friend is seen by the cultists.

Impression: Outer Wilds

Alec Wong — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A transformative experience, both philosophically and as it relates to gameplay mechanics. As many others might tell you, it is, metaphorically speaking, a jigsaw puzzle for which the pieces are scattered across space and time, you are made a detective in gathering these pieces, and the act of completing the puzzle at last reveals a majestic story. It is a game you are able to fully experience once and only once – perhaps like life itself; appropriate given how much the game dwells on the nature of life and ironically told through your own countless inevitable deaths.

All aspects of the game are scaled-down to easily digestible proportions, including not only the planets themselves, but orbital mechanics and a pop understanding of quantum physics. But the game could not work otherwise – the developers wisely make full use of the proportions they’ve developed to truly give a deep and expansive sense of exploration and a correct density of information to keep your understanding of the plot increasing with nigh every choice of movement you make. “Open world” games are all too common today, but this game is one of a rare pedigree to do it correctly. Open-world games are commonly too large for the content within so that they feel empty and lifeless. Outer Wilds celebrates life and death, and stories and histories, and the smaller scale of the game makes it more endearing and ironically feel more real.

The companion installment, Echoes of the Eye (EotE), continues on this excellent road creating an intense mystery put together at the very end. EotE presents some astoundingly fresh and creative game mechanics that left me in awe in figuring them out. In particular, I praise most the mechanic of death as a solution to the final puzzle. Perhaps done before, but it felt great to figure it out.

The only criticism I could level at the series is the occasional feeling of repetition and loss of direction. At times I admit feeling a little antsy in the original game revisiting places when I did not understand a solution to an existing puzzle – perhaps entirely on my ability to solve puzzles. The developers again wisely minimized this feeling by including perhaps up to four pieces of information in any location, and the ever-important “There is more to discover here” tag – this alone is tremendously thoughtful game development and prevents unnecessary back-tracking.

This feeling, however, unfortunately increased slightly in the EofE.

Navigating to the Stranger each time felt unnecessary – the character and the player both know where it is, and can only return to it so quickly, so there should probably have been an option to revive on the Stranger as if having just flown straight to it (deducting an appropriate amount of time). I would not apply this option to the base game, as the revival mechanic encourages different exploration paths much like the Nomai Probe, seeking new information from a different direction each time.
Similarly, exploring the Stranger’s simulation space requires some additional repetitive completion of puzzles to begin exploring once more. Getting the artifact in a specific place, rafting or jet-packing to a specific other place, logging into the matrix can cost you precious minutes in a game that harshly limits time for exploration which can make the experience that much more repetitive. Add onto this the slower pace of exploration in the simulation due to the darkness and understanding the strategy around the “pursuers”, and you have situations where you’ve run out of time before you’ve explored enough. It’s fortunate that there was nothing interesting in the darker corners of the simulation.
The “owlks” hunting you will sit in utter darkness awaiting your approach with no indication of where they are apart from dramatic fearful music. This mechanic is the only one that is frustrating, as they can locate you whether you have your lantern lit or not, and you cannot track their movement unless you focus a bright beam of light at their face, which obviously you would never want to do. I can understand why they would be able to see in the dark, lore-wise, but the dark is so black that you are effectively evading them with your monitor turned off. Some more balance is needed here; either increase visibility of the owls or the environment.

Ultimately, there is so much energetic creativity in this game, unparalleled world-building, beautiful art design and score, I have to recommend it through and through.

Wasps

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

With my family somewhere. I make a racist joke to my father, swapping the e for a Jews to Jaws. He didn’t laugh.

Very suicidal early on. With my family, I break a wine bottle to cut myself with it. Family doesn’t try hard to help.

Practicing defense like a video game. Particular class lets one take down bugs easier.

A giant honey comb breaks a tree limb from limb. Parts land on an AC unit. Bugs start entering the house. Lisa untroubled.

I grab a click lighter, and try to defend the house with it. I kill a few bugs( which are all shapes and sizes) including a really big white wasp. Then bugs start reacting to the heat and jumping at me. I awake.

Silky Nutmeg Ganache

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Silky nutmeg ganache was a libertarian and wanted to do away with orphanages. We were in CA because I remember Lisa and her family were in the area. But then again I think we were in a mix of CA, Nebraska, and Cleveland, because someone else needed to get to campus 2, and I remarked I’d forgotten how close it was (as in how close Lincoln is to Omaha, as if campus 2 was in one of those cities)

My brother suggested that the economy was crumbling underneath the surface and gave some economic reasons why he thought so. This prompted silky to go off on orphanages. I asked everyone if they knew any orphans; how could they be such a burden when we don’t know any orphans, I said? Silky of course knew many orphans.

Rupaul's Drag Race

Sat, 26 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Watching drag race with Lisa’s family. Most of them ignoring it.

Somehow Lisa and I are invited as contestants. I must have been favored somehow, because some people recognized me, and I felt like I didn’t need the introductory training.

Nevertheless we did the intro, which mainly centered on being goofy and improv. I participated with one other and mostly let them do the improv, to weak reception.

We’re getting ready for the first round, and I realize I don’t have any womenswear. Am I supposed to go out and buy it all right then? I figured I should drop out of the race, especially seeing as I’d have to shave my beard. I’m dismayed, but at least Lisa could continue. Lisa shares a moment with Rupaul referencing some 80s movie along the lines of beetle juice or some movie that she loved and knew well. At least she didn’t have to buy any clothes (lol).

I must have decided to quit. My parents were at a hotel room upstairs. Walked by my dad watching tv in a darkish room.

In a separate dream, I was participating in the race again. We were doing a mini challenge, I was paired up with miss vangie. We were waiting our turn to string some lights into some sockets. Someone mentions Scarborough, and Lisa at the end of the line gesticulated at me. I told vangie I was a fan, and didn’t get to tell her in the previous time I’d seen her in a dream.

Zombies

Sun, 13 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We’re pursued by a fleshy monster. I carry scissors to defend myself, but it’s useless.

A titanic fleshy monster sits in a warehouse as we’re making our way to the cruise ship. We have to go through to get on. There are more people on the boat, and it seems more organized, but it is useless.

A nurse is treating someone. She remarks that this is punishment for all the people she’s killed, and that we’ve all killed. She should speak for herself, and I take the scissors and snap the base of her neck.

Zombies overrun the area. We’re on a cruise ship but they’re nuking the area anyway. Couples near us were about to get married. I lament the situation as we move out to the ocean, futilely.

Weird

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Acting out or watching some movie. Something about a disease/mental illness transmissible that causes you to kill things. Something about dried up chicken pieces. Last seen is a boy squishing a snail on his desk.

Some sort of large pool. Ben Augustine is there training as a rescue diver. I fall in, narrowly avoiding a set of robots beginning a swimming race, and he fishes me out; felt more like a bungee jump, I don’t know why there was so much gravity involved. He tries to land me near where the robots jumped off, but we jumped way too high out of the water and that seemed dangerous so we landed back in the pool, on an edge. I just swam and got out. There were various maggots and larvae on the floor when we got out, he mentioned he tries to make sure he shakes them off as much as possible. We’re both disgusted.

Rob asks to play halo at the very end, he was playing mw2. I’m picking up some sensible weapons to work with, telling Lisa where I’ll be as I do so.

Andrew's Drink

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Hanging with andrew.

He said he’s made a concoction that will make you super intelligent, but he’s not sure if it will work or what the side effects are. He offers it to several people in the group. I think Hannah Kim and Jenny Yang from high school we’re present. All drank except me, I didn’t think the risk was worth it. I ask what’s in it, jokingly suggesting tuarine, guanine, caffeine; andrew gets it and retorts “lol yeah, like maybe I accidentally made Red Bull”. He mentioned it’s 50% alcohol, and was the only way to keep the solution stable. I consider keeping a vial in my fridge until after I’ve witnessed the side effects.

We go for a drive. Walking up and down a hilly slope in a city. Stop into a shop or two. I realize I have a beard, and it must be strange for my high school friends to see me with it. I ask Andrew what his plans were after, he said they were all going to extract all of their cash and try to make it big with their money. I joked that he was going to accidentally cause a run on the bank.

I thought maybe I left my glasses at home, but no they were hanging on a loop around my neck. I put them on. I check my watch; it’s like 6:30, and I think I should be going home to dinner. But I haven’t lived at home since before Nebraska, I remarked to Andrew, and I found it odd that I felt the urgency to get home. I looked at the watch again; it was 8:00pm, but it was bright and sunny like 12 noon. I chalked it up to summertime. The second-hand moved faster as it passed the 12hour mark, slowing down after passing it.

Sports

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt Angela led a mandatory sports team at work. I wanted to skip it. One of her captains was coming by to collect me. I heard it suggested on the internet to hook into some plant cyberpunk style and pretend i was really enjoying it and say no I’m not who she was looking for (she didn’t know what I looked like apparently). Told Andrew how it got out of sports duty, he laughed.

I wanted to skip because I had real work to do. Bryan Munch from work teams chatted me about updating some excel report.

Doctor

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Visiting a new doctor. Thinking about GLMs and scrolling through my billing and stuff while I wait.

I guess I was already on an examining table because a doctor came out from behind curtains on the right side and began his exam.

He started palpating my abdomen — with his elbow, which hurt. He asked about my abdominal issues, I told him lower right quadrant usually gives me issues.

Then he stuck a tongue depressor in my mouth. He’s pushing my tongue down hard, and I struggle to keep my mouth open. He sees it as me challenging him so he pushes down and in harder. I’m nearly on my back now as I grab the tongue depressor and try to stop him. He does not. I awake.

Crash

Sun, 09 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Driving along a wide road, like Mayfield.

I was fiddling with the console, like editing code or something. It was raining.

Lane departure assist took control and jerked me into oncoming traffic. It had full control of the steering wheel, I could not wrest it back in time. I remember getting hit on my right side. Three other cars involved. The crash was surprisingly tame, everyone gets out and asks if they’re okay.

We drive into the nearest parking lot to exchange information. I hit a middle aged man, somewhat grumpy but that’s understandable. Two others must’ve hit each other as a result.

I pull out my Progressive® app to give information. I tell the man I was sorry but the lane departure assist took over and I couldn’t do anything about it. He wasn’t too upset, considering. Someone else said we shouldn’t edit things too quickly so as not to overwhelm the databases.

We have to take the bus around. Lisa texts me and suggests I take everyone to oso burrito. No thanks Lisa. We’re waiting at a bus stop in the interior of a garage. Everything’s flooded.

Must’ve taken the bus in a big circle or something. I come back to my car, this time inside the garage. It had its front smashed in, the radiator completely fucked at some odd angle, and the passenger compartment buckled downward below the engine slightly. This was interesting, because I’d been hit on the side.

The car was white (I actually drive a black Corolla) and it looked very much like a Supra, although my brain was trying to recall the Corolla and added the roof rails. Maybe I was looking at the other dudes car but in-dream I recognized it as my own.

I remember thinking that perhaps I’d pay off the loan and just get the type R.

Turkey

Tue, 27 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Flying in an airship. A fat turkey alights on the (dock?). It has the ability to detach its head from the body, and comes inside. The head was acting like a cat.

We debated whether to eat the body for thanksgiving. What would we do with the head?

Angela, my old advisor, was seeking to replace her body parts with those of her grad students. Cat was there; maybe she wanted her eyes. I was to sign over my legs. I came up to the touch panel where I could give final confirmation to lose my legs, looking down into a valley from the sky. I selected no.

We left her airship for another one. This one had a bunch of thugs, and I’m on edge because of the limb trade. We get knives and axes and force them off the ship, or at least contain them.

Walter White

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

At Ania’s house.

Had several weapons, defending hallway against nazis or something. The hallway was extremely long. Ended up with two pistols.

Scenario changes slightly. I’m back in Ania’s house. Notice an acquaintance talking with strangers. I figure the best way to make money is to pretend acquaintance is a mugger and scare him off with the pistols, and we collect reward money.

Toward the entrance of the apartment, some friends come in. I offer to do something for them, something food related. They decline.

Scene jumps, we’re near a little cafe run by Gustavo Fring. Since it’s so low stakes I joke to Walter white to my left about how much crystal rock candy is selling nowadays. He is upset, and puts a needle in my ballsack, similar to the feeling when they were numbed during a vasectomy. He inserts it twice. I’m frozen, not wanting to move an inch.

Scene jumps. Lisa has shaven my beard off, leaving me with an ugly, patchy, thin chinstrap. I note it’s uglier than the beard. She shrugs it off, like she had just acted impulsively and I should accept it.

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Underneath our house is an old railway that we need to maintain. It’s only enough space for a worker to lay down and pass Amazon deliveries I said. It must have been bigger in the past.

Strange beautiful seascape underwater. It’s a sunken city and we’re on a mission to fix some environmental issues.

We’re to plug some natural spore activity. However for whatever reason we aimed to shower the plants with shredded credit cards. We get to the spot and mark it with a beacon. It’s far too expansive to cover, we decide to leave it as we’d be doing more environmental damage with the credit cards.

Beyond the end of the spore field is a small tv entertainment area, a door frame, and a cathedral beyond. To the left outside the door frame are shelves of broken aquaria.

Mario Kart

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Driving Izabele and team into a parking garage. She says “rev” like she wanted me to rev my engine, but I think she was talking about the ticket dispenser being broken. A key was inserted, and to get the gate up you just turned it. A busted up blue Tesla was on the corner.

Met some guy incredibly good at Mario kart, a mutual acquaintance of someone else. Exceptionally good. I had an older version of MK though. On my way out I paused by them as they were practicing and fiddled with my own game. I shut it, it was a game boy SP. Guy wanted me to put together a web app on MK stats for him, calling out to me as I was leaving that the data should be dumped into a database or something.

Fat black people passing by some Korean people selling food. They’re eating some sort of yellow purée.

Angry Colleagues

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Work event. Henna is trying to flee in a minivan, Jeff Hester and I attempting to stop her. I shatter a window with my knife. Somehow I guess we manage to stop her.

We have a meeting, Zaucha is leading. Henna is babbling, and Steve tells me to shut up. I retort that it was not me talking but the rest of the “class” (felt like high school) started to say how much I talked in the last two meetings.

I get very depressed and suicidal. I wander off in my own and find a police van, drive it into a pond. A revolver is in the van. I pull the hammer back, and I am pointing it at my head. Eventually stop pointing it, lower the hammer.

A policeman walks by; I ask to turn myself in. He is the most inept officer. He begins to make a sketch of me, with a bizarre process starting with a rubbing of my face, fed into a machine that 3D prints my likeness out of cookie, much like gingerbread. We talk and I’m calmer.

I head home. A friend stops by the store and buys cigarettes. I think about starting to smoke, but I don’t recognize any of the brands and don’t purchase anything.

At home, our pet Pallas cat is roaming the grounds outside, presumably dug a hole out of our bunker. Lisa is on a hammock beside the smoker friend.

Whale

Sun, 04 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In a wooden ship or something. A tail burst through, apparently of a whale but no flippers on the tail. It was dying, we spoke to it somehow. The town wanted to help heal it. I was to take photos but as we were sitting in an auditorium I realized something was up. Ran off and found another person got the gig, and were at the top of a very tall steep hill making the deal.

Search began for items that would help the whale.

Started off with American ninja style blocks in water, half moon shaped so you would roll it into the water if you leaned forward. Had to jump from one to the next along with other contestants. Set up parallel to each other. I felt the soreness from having started to exercise irl recently, as I was clinging onto the platform.

Someone like Malfoy got in the way and I broke his wrist with a wrist lock. Moved on upward, got invisibility chewing gum to help me ascend the ramps and stairs unnoticed.

Reached final room where we had to find the items that would cure the whale. Checked my pack for the instructions and could not find them. Walked around looking for a speed-increase food like in Breath of the Wild. Wasted some time looking for that, all the vendors were selling brightly colored food but in a language I could not understand. They surely all had some sort of effects.

Bryan munch was there and found the first item, said it was big and hidden like a Mario block. Someone said he went around in a big box bumping into stuff to reveal hidden items. Found a set of ancient looking wine canteens hidden in a corner. Time was running out, brought to judges. The third canteen was one of the cures, and it was product of x files.

Sat down in relief. I was told to be extra talkative this weekend as I was sure to be interviewed. Other contestants walked out, thanked those who helped me. One dude commented on how long I’d been empty handed.

Work Picnic

Sat, 03 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Matthew came with me to Claims control picnic. He was telling a story about how I must’ve been some sort of asshole or stupid. I was embarrassed.

I get on the phone with him to discuss exactly what went down. Something about a campsite, and how I wanted to take a picture of the food so when we reached our destination we’d have something to throw on the grill (naturally).

Eventually we end up nearby and I’m telling folks how sensible this is, obviously you take the food along with you in a photo. We’d done the same with the picnic, after all. I was met with nods and sounds of approval. Someone said something about encouraging disagreement (this is some corporate DEI thing; I was way too mad for this to be simple disagreement). We start walking away and I turn around and take a picture of the campsite, presumably to bring something along with me. I was sure my brother would be missing something as he did not take a photo.

Previously, we had a DEI module. Joe Tesoro was there. Someone was presenting. I think I had to talk because I was writing notes in a small notepad.

Much earlier was eating Korean food, mins family had a restaurant. I ordered at the last minute, not sure what. Probably some barbecue.

Some sort of military ceremony after. Someone was being honored. I leaned over to the person next to me and said “not to joke around too much, but what does HP UP mean in this context?” I was referring to a strange badge he’d earned. Probably increased his HP, I thought that was funny.

Mystery

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A corpse is talking to me from a bed. His poster with Mona lisa eyes is in the window. He is asking about a book, about raising the dead. I begin to talk to him. My brother arrives. He tells me this person is of some notoriety. The corpse is silent. Brother informs me the corpse had been trying to use me to get the book so it can reanimate itself. I had been talking about giving it the book to my brother earlier, not knowing it was a corpse, not knowing what it sought, weighing the options. I am betrayed by the corpse. The eyes in the window follow me.

Earlier playing SSB with Matthew, beat him w samus handily, he wanted to try some of the new characters.

Earlier still, talking to a distinguished professor remotely. He had an R package that lots of people wanted to see made more tidy friendly. He was retiring and thus not very interested in developing it. Melancholy. I think we offered to help.

Better Call Saul

Sat, 20 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt BCS finale. Finale looped into beginning of bcs. Saul was going to do one last score relitigating some medical bills. He does something wild, gets up on a lamp pole making faces into a building. Apparently in the beginning of the show the faces are goofy but in the finale they’re pained, we guessed that it was because we knew jimmy’s problems and troubles now.

Ceiling panel with thorny vines coming out. I had a huge saw you cut them down. Thought about pulling down everything through the ceiling; went through with it but patching too hard so I reversed in time to start over.

Went to live rupaul show. Happening all over the city, have to walk between acts. Song & dance happening at a fountain. Perspective changes to camera tracking performers. I think fucking eureka was performing.

Corolla

Wed, 03 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt that I was getting into my car (6MT Corolla), which was basically under a semi trailer, with the semi driver blaming me for the position. Started it up as the semi departed, everything sounds like shit. My car reports that the last attendant was some name with a J. Young black man walks up to my window — must be J because he says he’s the one who wrecked the transmission. I get out and am asking for his information and he runs away.

I walk up to several dudes and they’re confrontational, and I’m asking them to just hit me already then. Nobody does.

I go to an office to see if they have info on J. Get in line, they don’t have any info.

Scene changes. In school again, checking my tax history in an auditorium. Was comparing my motorcycle’s insurance with Geico to my auto insurance with PGR to show that PGR was cheapest, and realize I never paid for motorcycle insurance last year. I go to the computer lab to pay. Some Asian kids were there hanging out, playing a fighting game?. I get on the computer. Absolutely ridiculous keyboard, 60% or less but seems to have had the letters spaced out in a weird way. Not sure if I was able to pay the insurance. I don’t have a motorcycle in real life.

Steak

Sun, 31 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt in a class about steak preparation.

I was Luigi of Mario bros fame. Used special up B to tenderize steak. Was asked how often I did this; once an hour on the hour.

Colleague (mike V?) was thinking the food got in the way of the wine tasting. I didn’t disagree the chips were delicious.

Andrew

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I dreamt I was living in some apartment complex. There was a notice that they were removing a particular sort of tree from outside my unit. I went to go see and maybe take a picture, and Matt Damon was there so I asked him if he would take it for me, since he obviously is a world renowned photographer. He took two shots and talked for a little bit. I did not look at the shots.

I made my way through some tunnels or something. Stopped to use the bathroom. There was a package full of some greenish yellow gel that was left there by some startup claiming if you found any condoms in the toilet it would dissolve it. It wasn’t an ordinary toilet, more like something you’d find in Alien. Large central pissing unit, small reservoir on the floor. There was a gel packet in the reservoir as well for cleaning it.

Followed some black dude across the street to the mouth of another tunnel. I stopped to check my phone. One friend had texted me, and I ignored it. Andrew texted me asking if python file “territory” was tracked by git just like R files.

I was texting you to say that git versions any file, but only tracks lines if they’re text files. I struggled immensely with the autocorrect and typing the response.

My name was called; some of the Asian kids from high school started a basketball game around me and I was on a team. One of them was short and skinny, who was it? Brian jung, or Kevin tai … Tim Chen was probably there too.

GTFO

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

New gtfo rundown VR. Me and Andrew to begin. He had sentry I had foam. I was scouting a room, an access unlocks to catwalk. Resources at end of catwalk but beeg wan at the end too. Beeg wan very sensitive, basically wakes up as soon as you take the shit.

Run back to Andrew, we defend, his sentry taking focused damage from enemies. I asked if he wanted to move it to protect himself. Maybe we failed. Because we had to clear beeg wan again. I was crawling toward it, thinking perhaps it wouldn’t awaken if you weren’t looking at it. Asked Andrew to monitor if it got red while I army crawled to the resources. It woke up, we must’ve had to restart again.

This time it woke up immediately after opening catwalk, Andrew hel shotguns it to death but we must run. Must have died again.

On catwalk again, this time there were monsters sleeping suspended on the sides. Andrew (and min?) said something about “wall scouts” that came out last rundown. My flashlight wouldn’t turn off, and awoke the wall scouts. We must run.

We make it to the other side. Meet up with scientist, small device for wireless connection. It was Martin Short, wearing a white lab coat and having makeup a little like neelix from ST Voyager. Said something about the next challenge from the aliens having to do with hair. Makes a strange vomiting motion. I observe a map of the expedition, we’re an offshoot group from a larger boat.

We are spared an immediate assault from aliens, confirming such with the scientist. We head back. Lisa drops in for the end. She gets duplicate items as me in a backpack. I tell her about the weapons, shotgun, machine gun, the shotgun has three shots left. They were painted orange and black, I thought they looked cool.

This time my entire family is present. Making it difficult to finish the mission because they never played gtfo or l4d before and don’t know how to stick together. The new enemy type: apes.

Mom runs off by herself and dies, gets upset because other families had funerals for their loved ones who died and we’re just pressing on to finish mission. Some curly haired dude also here reminds me of () from middle school. Another girl (Lisa?) barely makes it back to the group. Unsure if we finished the game.

Next scene, Lisa and I in bed. We have three new dogs. I’ve enabled Wi-Fi backup for the dogs, and backup their data in our own Wi-Fi enabled bodies. Forgot to turn on long-range backup on two of the dogs. One by one they rest their head on my chest to backup. Last one stays there, but then with a childlike voice says to Lisa “I want to hurt him” and puts a very childlike finger somewhere and my right ball buzzed in pain.

Dream ends.

Dog Stump

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I had the most horrific dream.

We were dog sitting for Ruth (she doesn’t have a dog) and there was a bed in our room and a piece of furniture upside down in another room. It had a metal cage thing for storage that was exposed. The dog got the zoomies and took off, tripping over the bed. In the next room we heard a crash; it had torn off its front leg after getting caught up in the cage and was running around on the bloody stump.

Later we were playing with grizzly bears in the woods, with paper on fishing poles, as if they were cats. A few more bears snuck up behind us so we had to run down slope as fast as we could.

NYC House

Fri, 17 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We inherited a GIANT house in NYC, but it was ancient and fairly run down. We were trying to get to bed but there were a hundred light switches and many lamps each sort of tied to something else; like one wouldn’t go off unless the closet was shut but it wouldn’t shut.

I called my mom to see if she wanted it, perhaps to knock down and build a new place on top. She said that she could not, as she had lovers in India and London to attend to.

SSB

Fri, 03 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Started out fighting coura in ssb. He was writing down every reaction to every potential situation in a binder of some sort.

Dreamt Stella was protecting me as I competed in drag race. No memory putting it all on just competing and afterward. 2nd and 3rd called up to the podium. Waited for first place to call; I didn’t win the competition. Category was really really weird. I think I looked princessa like Jennifer Connelly in labyrinth but the others were so boy. Later told my coach I’d never felt the pressures of being beautiful only being a man.

Stella saw a pair of dogs nursing puppies outside in the rain and wanted to get out badly. I opened the window and she pushed her way out of the mesh. She also ran and caught a bad person, tore off many fingers before he was apprehended.

Earlier, someone else ordered kits to water cool all our pcs, set up primarily by some girl in the group. Was controlling a video game character while this going on, struggling to maintain a normal posture as a girl expressed interest in me.

Last there was a ball game. Another boy wong did well, hit a home run and everyone got home. Yellow jerseys. I was up last. Practice went well I was sure to hit. Step up to the plate, mud on my glasses, ask for time to clean.

Pitcher pulls out all dirty tricks. The ball is a bit of red slime, almost sinewy, like a piece of waste meat. He shuts the barn doors to home plate so I can’t see him pitch. He pitches right in front of home plate. He has all his buddies in front of him pitching so I can’t see him wind up. His last pitch was in the dirt far in front of home before the ump warns on time. Never got a hit to finish the game.

Climbing a hill

Mon, 30 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Crawling up a large steep hill with family, plus Lisa. Did we have rifles? Grass was wet. Matthew ahead of me slips and slides down into me, have to start again.

On a ship. Locked into a room by several people with hockey sticks. Maybe it was a game, I had a hockey stick too. My name was called, I twirl my hockey stick and head into the hall. Asked a question, and answer it. I tell the person I thought they were going to ask me to show my submechanophobia underwear, of which I had several pairs, of course.

Military Logistics

Fri, 27 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

At Ania’s previous.

In the military, but basically doing field work, but in a suburb? Manual f250 truck was mine to use. Did some sql queries on org structure of the buildings in the town. Severe flooding. Drove the truck down the road, we were evacuating. Left a kayak or canoe by the side of the road, figured I should get it. Water was very deep, so I tipped the truck on its side for whatever reason, thinking it’d be easier to get the boat in. Others helping me out.

End up stranded for longer, people in the mountains still not fully evacuated.

30 rock

Sat, 21 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Live GTA with Andrew, he summons some cars for us to drive. MCII level racing.

Walking over rooftop w Lisa playing Liz lemon. I remember thinking about how this is like the dreams I hate with lots of elevation and falling as I work my way down the side of a roof.

Get to street level NYC, walk up to streeet performer, Lisa wants to help make then money.

Jokingly punched holes in their box, change their act somehow. Street performer pays himself to make it seem worthwhile.

Nypd interested in keeping track of ping pong balls, 30 rock music playing over dozens of balls on tracks moving around. Fred Armisan from SNL playing some sort of hungry hippo in the middle.

Lisa

Thu, 12 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Trying to date Lisa. She said that it’d be best if we didn’t, I forget the reason. I said, problem was, we’re already married. She said, but that was for fun / the fun part! Still we can’t date.

Looking for some sort of router. Friend hands me an old one, I’m looking for a newer one. Find a big long black one with blue lights, this is the one. It’s for ATT fiber at home in NYC.

Karate

Sat, 07 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt I was fighting some Asian dude in karate, my nemesis or something. Winning 7-6 and then the world sort of shifted.

We were in a house or a bar, second floor. Balcony right outside. My things were right by the door. I tried to be friendly with a child-person outside (adult but I was treating them like a child) and handed them a bag out of my things. They immediately lit a fire with some matches. I took the things away from them in case they started a fire.

We move on. I remember thinking that this was death, the afterlife, and the vague sense of less control and clarity over my actions and vision that improves with experience. There were those who have maximized control.

Stop by a group of actors/actresses. It’s after shooting wraps, and they’re at a picnic table in another covered balcony. One woman is saying how she never wants to work with (Dr. #####) again, played by Henry winkler. He looks affronted.

Naan

Wed, 04 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt I was leaving adk for good again, but it was also Cleveland. Wanted to eat best food before leaving. Tried to go to best gyros but closed. Tried to get some naan meal somewhere else, but the baker would not sell me any of the six naan or so left on the counter.

I asked why he wouldn’t sell it, he gave some odd noncommittal answer. Another customer came up to him and asked what the price would be to sell all six or eight naan, he said $80. I asked if the stranger wanted to split it and he said yeah.

I purchase the naan in spite. The baker says I have the opposite of a poverty brain if I could do that. Guy couldn’t pick up I was buying his shit out of spite. I must have reached home because I was telling Lisa about it, but she sided with the baker, apparently going so far as to update some social media with the baker’s outlook/perspective/lifestyle which he called omasoma or some shit, fuck that guy.

Bat

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt there was a bat in our house, but we lived in a swampy watery place. Or perhaps it was field work of some sort. Lisa and I looking throughout the house, came across giant snails, other creatures before finding the bat cuddled with the cats.

We wanted to remove the bat because of rabies, but I said it was too adorable to be removed.

High school people

Thu, 07 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Dexter Yu sent a message saying we should all go on a double date. Did not rsvp because married.

Went on another road trip with mark, maybe mom was there too. Drove to the end of the island, was in a cabin there until the evening. Walked out to the beach w my camera gear.

Pier

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

City built on the ocean.

We’re in our Fairhill house, it’s one of the cities.

In the mud porch, the window looks forced open.

Move to another house. Sport drops something in front of me, I get a text, from sport, on my iPhone 13. It reads “I think this was part of a gun.” Sure enough, it was.

Doing laundry. The washer was built into our new fridge.

Move to the next house. I’m on edge. I get my BB pistol. Some Asian girl walks by. We draw on each other and start firing. Her dad walks up and I realize she’s no killer. He asks if that was a real gun. Of course not.

Going back to the first house to reassess evidence of a threat. Meet someone along the way who asks if sport really texted me. Of course he did, here it is on my iPhone 13. But I could not find the text. YouTube starts playing stupid videos and does not stop.

Walk by a pier full of dozens of people fishing in a line. One angry man casts his line with all his might, biffing it off the platform and dragging another girl down. Damn.

Knife Fight

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Was knife fighting with a stranger.

Mom was a bartender, served me up a healing potion.

Chased around town Mario kart battle style with my cousin or brother.

Found a tourist info sky tram thing, rode that to avoid getting hit.

Survivor

Sun, 23 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Dreamt a contestant on survivor

On a cruise ship, had to jump off into a bay, but this was an urbanized island.

Swam in the bay. Saw a Toyota boat that looked just like a Camry from the back.

Somehow watching the episodes in real time as I was playing. Saw some dude named Deshawn say he swam by some “thin Asian dude” in confessional style and wanted to reply, but I didn’t know how.

Ended up in a hotel room with several other contestants watching TV. Told them about the weirdness of watching the episodes while I was contesting, if I didn’t see a confessional made by myself it means I never decided to do it and that’s it.

Everyone chilling on a California king size bed.

PGR Bully

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Bully at PGR. Was manishi there?

Some offsite trip, tropical.

Big white dude kept coming up to me wanted to punch me. I asked what he gon do. Get into fight like cobra Kai.

After hours I see from his perspective he starts to make a presentation to one up me at work. Ends up showing that we’re all fucked and the business going to fail. Settle this miyagi do style.

I set aside my differences and give advice on presentation, the dude used like 10 minutes of call of duty clips to get his point across. Told him it’d be better received and respected if he focused on the theory, no more than a minute of jokes.

Bully respected that, told me not to stay late at the office/workplace. LaRusso starts talking about defense.

Earlier in the dream, I think family at grandmas house.

Creepy Dog

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Creepy dog in an abandoned facility. I was climbing down for some reason, passed a creepy Pokémon dog that was attacking me, but slowly. Maybe shooting slow projectiles. It was saying some weird stuff.

Lisa was nearby, drowsily telling me about her brothers friends and how they’re the type of people who don’t have the latest game system and can’t be expected to run spider man. She asked if I had put all my Pokémon away.

Mars

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

On a rocket to Mars (?) with lots of people. Seems like a first flight for colonists.

Delays due to something missing. Go down to nearest planet to find. Walking across desert, drop phone go to look for it. Find Matthews phone and go back to a camp/settlement, find Matt give to him. Find my own phone.

Local jawa like creatures present, taking our parts. Have to go rebuild a robot or something but i don’t have access to the fabricator, have to stand in line. Materials look like wrapping paper tubes.

People back on ship getting impatient. Tory and Sam from cobra Kai there. Joined cobra Kai in making a mess on the floor so Sam might trip.

Supposed to be many hours long flight, three hour descent. Never did make it.

Paint thinner

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Paint thinner cleaning food

Dad sick, covered in burns

On a road trip

Offered 20000 off my lease to let a company use my car for a week

Prison

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Prison of sorts

Older less useful people made to step on chickens to kill them for processing

Photographing something

Zombies

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Old church like setting.

Heavy rains.

Had my hatchet and axe.

Drank / ate something that could bring you back if you had the right ingredients to make you again.

Basement flooded, all my things in the water, saw my hiking pack w gps float away.

Before zombies we had to defend against another team of people. Melee combat.

Zombies came later, after during fight. Axed them. Outside, saw several of them scale the cliff into the church grounds. Confronted them on the grounds. Lisa managed to get a weapon from one of them, i kept using the axe.

Fired from work depression

Sat, 09 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Got fired from work because of depression, could not maintain the facade.

Laura Naccarato from high school was there, she had done some sort of medical procedure on me as a favor but i couldnt accept it so i paid her $200.

Jason Mendoza from the good place was my brother and had some legal documents saying he was entitled to all the money i made at progressive. I signed it over.

Went to work at an ice cream shop or something. began to come out of the depression, started cleaning up the car/bus i was on. Picked up wrappers and such as well as a tomahawk steak and put it in the bin.

Started talking at the customers at work, told this lie about my father’s business and how we had rebranded and stuff (there was no business).

Moonlander ZSA Ergonomic Keyboard -- Review

Alec Wong — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Moonlander ZSA Review

I bought this thing in late October, a few days after I’d had some pain in my wrist at work. This thing comes direct from Taiwan (free shipping!), and the wait was rather agonizing, checking the tracking every 10 minutes or so. At about $375, this is not a budget keyboard by any means, but I figured the health benefits avoiding wrist injury was worth the price tag. Reviews indicated that the build quality is extremely high, so I went for it.

The TL;DR is that this is a forward-thinking, excellently-devised split keyboard, able to keep up with all of your configuration needs. The ortholinear columnar layout perhaps offers some ergonomic benefits, but I find it less appropriate for gaming. I’m still using my old keyboard for work until my confidence increases with the Moonlander.

Task	Rating
Typing	5/5
Gaming	3/5
Programming	4/5
Ergonomics	4/5

Typing speed

As expected, typing speed tanked in the first week that I worked with this keyboard. The manufacturer ZSA provides a terrific app called Oryx that allows you to configure your layout, test your typing speed on prose or code, and monitor the keystrokes live – this is what I used primarily to assess my typing speed.

datasets = list.files('assets/data/')
paths    = list.files('assets/data/', full.names = TRUE)
dates = substr(datasets, start = 1, stop = 10) %>% as.Date()
last_dataset = paths[which.max(dates)]
typingData = fread(last_dataset)

typingData_long = typingData %>%
  tidyr::pivot_longer(cols = c("Accuracy", "WPM"), names_to = "Metric", values_to = "Value")

ggplot(typingData_long) +
  aes(x = Date, y = Value, color = Type) +
  geom_point() +
  geom_smooth(se = FALSE, formula = y ~ x) +
  facet_wrap(~Metric, scales = 'free') +
  scale_y_continuous(breaks = scales::pretty_breaks(n = 10)) +
  theme_bw() +
  theme(
    panel.background = element_rect(fill = rgb(31/255, 34/255, 42/255)),
    plot.background  = element_rect(fill = rgb(31/255, 34/255, 42/255)),
    strip.background = element_rect(fill = rgb(31/255, 34/255, 42/255)),
    strip.text = element_text(color = 'gray90'),
    legend.background = element_rect(fill = rgb(31/255, 34/255, 42/255)),
    legend.key = element_rect(fill = rgb(31/255, 34/255, 42/255)),
    text = element_text(color = 'gray90'),
    axis.text = element_text(color = 'gray90'),
    panel.grid = element_line(color = 'gray20')
  )

## `geom_smooth()` using method = 'loess'

My typing speed dropped to as low as ~20 words per minute for code in the first few times typing on the Moonlander. This should be expected; the ortholinear, columnar layout takes time to get used to, and the location of symbols does not correspond to any existing muscle memory on QWERTY layouts.

However, over time, my speed has improved; I’ve actually exceeded my prose typing speed (which was previously typically around 85 WPM) reaching as high as 114 WPM.

Typing code is going to be slower due to the symbols accessed, but familiarity with my layout and keeping a layout as intuitive as possible to existing muscle memory returned my speed to roughly 60 WPM. Accuracy is fairly constant, around 96% for both types of typing (Oryx does not register data points for results < 95%).

Layouts

Speaking of layouts, my layout changed drastically and often compared to the default Moonlander. The bit that gave me the most trouble was where to keep the symbols:

Should I keep them in a dedicated layer?
Put them on the left-hand (like the default layout has it), right-hand, or both sides?
Which symbols should exist on the base layer?

Ultimately, I decided that symbols should all mostly live in their own layer, but the muscle memory from an ordinary layout should not be forsaken unless there was a good speed, convenience, or ergonomic reason.

I used the key where caps-lock normally goes to access the symbols layer, and moved all of the symbols from the number keys down to the home row (for the most part). This way, existing muscle memory needs not be reprogrammed too far.

At this moment, I have 8 layers;

Base
Arrows (accessed from the semi-colon, like the base layer)
Numpad
Symbols
Gaming
Colors
Control (media and more arrow keys)
R/IDE

Ergonomics

I believe that the tenting and the split layout does much to alleviate discomfort. Normal keyboards feel somewhat cramped in comparison. I find myself typing in a more recommended way, arms at a 90° angle, and hands floating above the keys instead of resting on the wrist-wrest. However, I am less enamored with the ortholinear layout, and I think that it is attractive in principle, but has some disadvantages.

The keycaps are the same size as my old board, but keys feel smaller on a staggered layout keyboard. I guess this implies that I feel like my fingers are traveling farther on average on the Moonlander to hit keys. I think that there is some merit to this; the staggered layout has keys oriented in an almost hexagonal arrangement; while some keys are farther to reach on a standard keyboard (“B” is one instance) I think for the most part the ortholinear layout incurs more travel distance as the grid arrangement is less space efficient than the hexagonal arrangement.

For example; take the position of the letter “F”: on an ordinary staggered layout, my finger can comfortably press F, R, T, G, V, C, and B without adjusting the rest of my left hand. On the ortholinear layout, I lose access to the letter “C”; I must use a contortion to hit the letter with my index finger that disrupts the position of my other fingers.

One may say that I should instead learn to press “C” with my middle finger; perhaps this is proper, but it violates my principle of mitigating repositioning of fingers on standard keyboards. Pressing the center of the “C” key using the middle finger on a standard layout requires lifting the index finger; otherwise the middle finger intersects the index. Better to use the index to press “C”, as it requires less readjustment. Plus, I’d like to avoid losing my touch-typing skills with a normal keyboard so I don’t look inept when I inevitably have to use a standard layout.

This is about the only concern for normal typing, but the grid vs. hexagonal arrangement has a greater bearing in gaming.

Gaming

Lots of buttons are available by the left hand between the additional row on the bottom and the thumb-cluster keys. This is certainly a plus, although I find the accuracy of the thumb-cluster keys to be lower in general, so they are reserved for less critical actions, like opening the map (usually M).

The major concern about the grid layout for gaming is due to what was mentioned in the previous section; there is more repositioning that needs to be done due to the grid arrangement.

Take the common gaming situation where digits 1-4 access certain inventory slots, and WASD are for movement. On a standard keyboard, while “W” is being held by the middle finger (to move forward), the digits “2” and “3” are accessible to be pressed by the ring and index fingers respectively, because they are staggered up and to the left and right of “W”. In fact, it’s not difficult to press all three simultaneously.

With the columnar layout, having “W” pressed by the middle finger results in much greater contortion to access “2” in particular. “3” is still accessible, but it’s much too far high now due to the vertical shifting of the layout. Try to press all three simultaneously; it’s not really easy to do without hitting other keys by mistake, and not without repositioning the middle-finger on “W”. Add left-shift for sprinting, and you now can’t really press “2” at all.

“X” is the same way; while “W” is held down, “X” can be easily pressed using the index finger with a staggered layout, but more movement of the hand is required with the columnar layout.

Given that equipment swaps typically need to be quick in response to changing circumstances, I would trade the extra thumb buttons and bottom row for the easier-to-access “2” and “X” buttons of the staggered layout. It is nicer having WASD in a grid, however; but this is a small benefit.

Remapping everything to the right by one button (W to E, A to S, D to F, etc.); fixes the distance traveled to hit “3” by a bit, but it does not fix the issues with “2” and “X”. In this layout, I remapped shift to ‘A’, and left-control to ‘Z’. This results in a more neutral position for the hands, which is admittedly nice.

Programming

Programming uses a lot of symbols, in contrast to ordinary writing, so accessing those symbols efficiently is what will determine typing speed. On an ordinary layout, there are only two layers to worry about; the base layer, and the shifted layer. For me, having the majority of symbols – not to mention navigation buttons – available in the base layer is always going to be more efficient than shifting into a layer. For this reason, while my typing speed is nearly back to normal or faster with prose, general work functions & programming feels more effective on the standard layout.

Build

I think the quality of the build is fantastic. The lighting, materials, software, and everything else are top-tier.

I replaced the original keycaps with HyperX sculpted keycaps; I was pressing wrong keys (particularly with the numeric keys) way too often due to the lack of vertical differentiation between farther keys. Travel is far in some cases; take “5”: the distance on a normal keyboard replicated on the ortholinear layout brings me to the lower right corner of “4”. An additional few millimeters of travel are required to hit the “5” key, making it all the more important to have some vertical profile to avoid hitting “T” by accident. Sculpted keys made a tremendous difference in my quality of life using this board.

One gripe I have is the lack of grip; when the keyboard is in a flat position, the underbody grips contact the surface and prevent the device from slipping. When the keyboard is in the tented position, however, the grips no longer contact the surface and the keyboard slides around way too much. I fixed this with a washcloth underneath the left-hand component, but there should be friction contacts on the wrist-rest and the thumb-cluster to avoid this sliding problem.

Last, the wrist-rests are somewhat rattly when weight is shifted between the left and right side of the rests. Most of the time this isn’t an issue because my hands are floating above the keys instead of on the rest. However, they are very comfortable despite being hard plastic, and I prefer using it over the HyperX wrist-rest for this keyboard specifically.

Inception

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I wake up from a dream to tell lisa on the couch about how I dreamt about the basement and how I thought I neglected some animals in aquaria down there. Then two dogs come in (a medium black dog and a little scrappy white dog) and I ask lisa…what have we been feeding the dogs?

The answer is I was neglecting the dogs too. The little scrappy dog was sitting in the sink in our living room on a dish floating in some water when I saw it had slices in it like a poorly carved turkey. I ran some warm water over it, but it fell in, and when I went to retrieve it to my horror I pulled out only bones and the fleshed head. I think there was another medium white dog in the water, dead perhaps.

Impression: Soma

Alec Wong — Sun, 23 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Despair Simulator 2015 - excellent foray into existential crises, moral dilemmas, and science fiction horror.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Programming

Statistics

“Thou shalt not report odds ratios”, Mark Liberman 2007

Health

“Body Electric”, Manoush Zomorodi 2023

Society

AI

About Me

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I grew up in Queens, New York City, went to undergrad at UNL, graduate school at Cornell, and now am living in Cleveland working for Progressive Insurance. My main hobbies are PC games & photography, and this year I’ve picked up espresso-making.

The Website

The scientific name for moose is Alces alces. I had the idea to reserve this domain name around 2015, while I was studying the New York Adirondack moose population during my Master’s program at Cornell; I never got around to it but finally did so January 2020 (yay!).

The genus Alces is close to an anagram for my own name, and it felt almost too fitting in a preordained sort of way. I still feel fortunate and grateful for the experience that I was given, and for the mentorship of my advisors Angela Fuller (USGS), Andy Royle (USGS), Jeremy Hurst (NYDEC), and the rest of my laboratory and friends there. You can read my thesis here.

I graduated from my Master’s degree in Quantitative Ecology in 2018, and have since moved to Cleveland, OH, where I am now a data analyst at Progressive Insurance, working on the Staffing and Efficiency agenda in Claims.

Professional Interests

I am interested in websites and how they’re put together. I never did the whole Myspace thing so I feel like I got a very late start into writing HTML. And at this point, does anyone really write just HTML anymore? This website uses:

hugo with the terminal theme to generate websites from markdown.
Some PHP from novaGallery for the photography subpage.
A teensy bit of R Markdown compiled locally to markdown.
Server running PHP 7 and Apache2.

Statistics & Machine Learning

Applications of spatial data in particular has always interested me; kriging, Gaussian processes, and more recently convolutional neural networks.

I enjoy learning new methods where I can, and employing what I know at work.

I’d say I’m competent with:

Bayesian MCMC hierarchical models
GLM’s
GAM’s

I’d like to learn more about:

Time series modeling
Neural networks

Programming

I am extremely familiar with R, comfortable in Python. I do some bash scripting and operating in linux environments at work and home.

On github, I have contributed bug-fixes to the R packages boxr, import, keyring, and emphatic. I have also contributed a minor PR to the novaGallery PHP framework, which I use to power alecsalces.com/photography.

Teaching & Presentations

I have found that sharing knowledge has been a common and rather satisfying thread in my career. I have always identified as a scientist, and whether I end up back in science or remain in business, I will always value the scientific culture of sharing in discovery.