Daniel M. Drucker

Turkeys!

In 2006, I was a TA for Dr. Shatte's Psych 001 class at Penn. When I photocopied the midterm exam (just before Thanksgiving), I took the liberty of adding a final page on the back, asking students to "draw a turkey".

And his boots are yellow.

An epilogue to Lord of the Rings. (written after my first re-reading of it since 1993) In a quiet glade untouched by the Ages, a house stood among ancient trees. Inside, that which called itself Tom Bombadil sat at a long table; about his feet, in wide vessels of green

Morse Code to Email

It's 2 AM, and I just had an idea, or something I need to remember. I don't want to disturb my wife by getting up, and even the very-dim light from my phone can be bothersome. Writing is difficult. What's the answer? Morse code,

Buffalo

The sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo", a well-known-to-linguistics-students grammatically correct phrase in English, is very often not presented in a way that helps people understand it. To teach it to my daughter this morning, I took her through it step by step: Cats bully mice. Which

Flights in Location History

I wanted to find all of my flights in my Google Location History, which I've had collecting my phone's GPS location nonstop for 14 years. First, I exported my location history from Takeout. This provides Records.json. Let's turn that into a CSV file

Bedtime!

Times between 6pm and midnight that I have said "bedtime" on irc. Note the bumps for C and S's bedtimes before my own.

I live on a golf course, on average.

The time-weighted geocenter of everywhere I've lived. On average (as of posting this), I live on a golf course in Fairfield, CT.

The Cave of Wonders

Aladdin's Cave of Wonders permits only “the diamond in the rough” to retrieve the lamp. Why? It's inevitable! The cave contains at least two items which can break causality: the carpet and the lamp. (The itinerary in A Whole New World proves the carpet can time-travel.

Three Thousand Muffins

Every Saturday for about the last 5 years, C and S's grandma comes and makes 24 pumpkin muffins. And nearly every morning, they eat two muffins each. I figure C eats two muffins around 300 days a year, for the last five years.

Ada-mew, 2007-2022

We had to say goodbye today.

Stable Diffusion Learns Ariel's Face

Matt Haughey posted a quick how-to on teaching Stable Diffusion a specific face; I followed it and had SD create some pictures of Ariel. It's extremely easy to follow and generates really remarkable results - and quickly, each of these took less than 15 seconds to make (after

Drawings of me

A few times in my life someone has drawn a picture of me. Anna Y., 2011. The one on the right recalls William Sleator's "House of Stairs". 2011. I forget the context. By an artist at Sanrio in 2002 as part of their magazine's

A Shell (bash) Puzzle

Here's a puzzle for bash experts. Create a file named puzzle.3. 1. It must be 3 lines long. 2. All lines except the first must consist solely of the string futz. 3. If you run bash puzzle.3, you should receive (all and only) this response: puzzle.

Google Civil Twilight

Dear users, [ ] MAJOR [ ] MINOR Google service which you [ ] DEPENDED ON TO DO YOUR JOB [ ] BUILT MAJOR PARTS OF YOUR WORKFLOW ON [ ] LIKED A LOT [ ] HAD BEEN MEANING TO TRY OUT, DAMMIT [ ] HAVE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF will be discontinued [ ] LITERALLY TOMORROW [ ] IN SIX MONTHS, AND YOU CAN EXPORT YOUR DATA

The Last Artisans

HERMAN uh grew up watchin' mah pappy make modems with just a chisel an' hacksaw. course, things're different now... BG MUSIC drawn-out harmonica NARRATOR Herman McCowski is one of the last modem artisans in Tennessee. Modems are his life. HERMAN The hell is this! Herman picks

Communicating with a KRUSH Flip Clock dot matrix display

If you've bought a KRUSH Flip Clock dot matrix display, and you want to display your own arbitrary data on it, here's the information you need: Connect a serial cable through a rs485 adapter to the blue and white wires. Connect at 57600. The clock is

Solstice

The longest night, the shortest day. When we gather around fires, and around evergreens, and tell stories about death and rebirth, to celebrate that it’s the darkest time again, and so it’s going to get lighter now. And as well as to celebrate, we cuddle up to reassure

Ariel's Commute

How long does Ariel's commute take, and does it matter when she leaves? Ariel grabbed her data from Moves. Here I'm going to see how time-of-day affects her commute duration. Side note: Kudos to Moves for excellent export facilities. Absolutely wonderful. They give you the data

A hole in my eye

Today during a routine eye exam I noticed that I had a blind spot right in the center of my left eye - when I looked directly at a letter on the chart, it would vanish. Now, I know that the fovea is worse at some kinds of vision; for

High Fi

A story my dad used to tell: My friend Ken worked for what was then a first-tier Japanese hifi company. At the time -- it was the eighties -- companies exhibiting at CES gave shit away. Shirts, pens, calculators... you know: trade show crap. Rather than have his giveaway get

What Makes You Think I'm Inside?

Ariel is reading Hofstadter’s Le Ton Beau de Marot and wrote her own version of the poem: Liza dear, peer to peer, hello world! Here unfurled: Jacquard’s loom. Chinese room you’re inside. Do not hide - Please recupe! Close your loop and proceed. Like form-feed , without jams.

Facebook photo tags export

A few months ago, I scanned a few thousand old family photos and uploaded them to Facebook. Family members and friends came out of the woodwork from all over the world and helped tag them, identifying faces I barely remembered from childhood or had never known at all. I wanted

Real Estate Disclosures

I'm starting to keep track of what the MLS Disclosures for a house should have REALLY said. DISCLOSURES: Architect basically phoned it in. DISCLOSURES: If you have a shred of soul in you it will be eradicated by taking one step into this home. DISCLOSURES: There is probably

Generation gap: How communication modes are perceived by different ages.

up to 30 30 – 50 50 and up phone call What’s a phone call? Rude. Interrupting, presumptuous. Polite. email Rude. Long-winded, waste of time. Polite. Rude. Impersonal. text/tweet Polite. Rude. Brusque, impersonal. What’s a text?

calendrical calculations

I'm trying to define a new [silly] calendar, because there aren't enough of them yet. My calendar, so far, is specified: epoch (orthodox) is the moment the leading edges of the dinosaur-killing asteroid touched the surface of the earth. As this is somewhat difficult to define,