I’ve seen more bald eagles of late and I’m in Canada. Are they fleeing for some reason?

At least the Canada geese are going the other way. Those things are the devil! Chasing after me on my bike hissing…

I don’t know about good, but today was an unusual day for me.

With a blizzard setting in, I figured my best chance to get to work was on the bus. So I was walking up to where I could catch it passing various houses with Christmas lights and decorations, only to stop dead in my tracks at one particular house.

It’s sole decoation was an 8-ft tall Krampus on the front lawn. It had a goat head with horns and demonic eyes and sharp claws holding a gnarled staff on one side and chains on the other. It’s dark burgundy cloak had a dusting of snow on its shoulders to complete the look.

Then I was on the bus trying to digest what I had seen when who should walk on but Polar Man! He’s a local superhero with a bushy beard and a mask. He helps people in distress shovel out their driveways. At one point as the bus was passing through a residential area, he got up and yelled “Driver! Stop the bus!” and leapt out dramatically to cheering passengers.

1. Honestly, I don’t think dialog is bad for this? Maybe npc_dialog or npc_dialog_tree if you want to be less ambiguous?
2. Something like prompt, query, or npc_prompt maybe?
3. reply, response, or player_response? Maybe response could be the container that holds a reply (the text the player says) and a link to the next prompt?

Yeah, the method used sounds like some sort of selection bias (cherry-picking or whatever you want to call it), but the motivation behind it (as there is a definite intent here to steer the discussion) is likely egocentric or just a general need to be contrarian or condescending.

My brother is involved with tournament Scrabble and knows Nigel well. I don’t compete myself but have watched games among top players. There is a lot of strategy beyond simply memorizing word lists.

The best play is often not the highest-scoring one. You need to examine the board and determine what it might expose to your opponent. You also need to keep track of what tiles have been played already to get an idea of what may be lying on your opponent’s tray at the moment. You may also take the calculated risk of playing a word you know is not real. If it is not challenged, it stands. Depending on tournament rules, a challenge may cost you if it fails (i.e. the word is legit), so there is a poker-like bluffing element.

Interesting. I had never heard of LilyPond before. I do a lot of music scoring using abc notation and even wrote myself a GUI to help with that, but it’s interesting to see that there is another script language for generating sheet music.

I always like playing the Wexford Carol on my violin around this time of year.

Wow. He might wanna stay away from high windows for the next little bit?

On Titan, you could strap on wings and fly around.

Moreover, the atmosphere is >5% natural gas, but without oxygen you can’t burn it. I suppose oxygen would be considered the fuel in that case and you’d pipeline that instead? And being able to breathe would be a nice side-benefit.

This reminds me of the first time I went to see my wife’s family long before we got married. There was a big gathering for Christmas and she had a kid sister looking totally distraught at the dinner table where a feast was laid out. “I can’t eat this! That poor 3-legged lamb!!!” And she ran off.

Same. Yeah these days, if you hear a lot of noise, that’s a good indication something is wrong like a bad mask or hose seal or the humidity chamber is not in all the way.

When I first got a cpap, I asked my wife if I’m still snoring? She looked pensive and said no, it’s more like a heavy breathing. I asked her what she meant by that and she said you know, like Darth Vader.

That was an early model though. They’re much quieter now!

I thought Salvatia must be the poorest country in the world if even their army has to go around begging for money.

Have to say I’m a little sceptical on this. In the early 2000s we had that giant power outage that hit everywhere from Ontario down to the US eastern seaboard. It’s all one giant, tightly-integrated grid. Both sides milk Niagara Falls for all its worth, for example.

If it were Quebec making this threat, I would take it seriously. They spent a lot to rebuild their grid with DC isolation and everything after a horrific ice storm took it down. If they said “we’re cutting you off”, then yeah, they could realistically do so. But this is Doug Ford in Ontario. What a blow-hard.

If he’s talking more about gas/oil pipelines, well, what’s the point? Trump’s tariffs will already cause prices to soar at the pump in the US. No need for an embargo. Talk about shooting yourself in your foot. I cannot believe he has any support, and yet here we are.

I consider myself a practicing non-Catholic and a non-practicing Anglican. I haven’t attended an Anglican service since childhood but play music with my wife at her Catholic church, so I have to attend a practice for that every week.

I love my ebike! It’s been a game changer for me. I can give you a few safety pointers that apply to cycling in general.

• invest in a rear-view mirror so that you can watch for people coming up from behind and cutting you off with a sudden right turn (the right hook, as it is sometimes called)
• at intersections, try to make eye contact with anyone turning across you
• get front and rear lights (most jurisdictions require these for night time riding but they are good to have on in daytime also)
• get a bell (again, generally required) and use it when you are approaching pedestrians who can’t see you or in general when your sight lines are obstructed
• watch out for parked car doors swinging out (if you need to take over a lane to pass a car safely, it is your right to do so)
• when you need to maneuver (e.g. change lanes, turn, etc.), use hand signals and do so gradually from a good distance

The nice thing about an ebike is it doesn’t cost you a lot of effort to get going again after slowing down or stopping, so you should do so if you’re facing an uncertain traffic situation.

Also, regarding risks, you need to weigh them against the risks of not riding. In my case, I work a sedentary job and this is my primary means of exercise. (Yes, even ebikes can give you exercise!) I was developing type 2 diabetes, but since I started the bike commute, I’ve been losing weight (albeit very gradually) and my numbers have been going down.

There was a woman who died recently when her ebike was hit by a pickup truck along a route I often also ride an ebike on. He was making a left turn at an intersection. It bothers me that a collision of that nature was still enough to cause a fatality. I mean you would expect a turning vehicle to not be moving at great speed?

But I guess as the article points out, the higher profile and greater weight of trucks takes its toll. Also, I think there is a certain segment of muscle truck drivers who like to floor it with reckless abandon, though I don’t know if that was the case here?

Your first one reminds me of something that happened awhile back. I was at a donut shop staring out the window when a scruffy dude in a pickup truck slammed into a traffic light, tipping it over across the street.

Now as it happens, said donut shop was a watering hole for police officers (yes, the stereotype is real), and about a dozen buff uniforms trotted out within seconds. The guy climbed out of the truck and tried to light a cig and it fell out of his mouth as he saw them rushing up.

My favourite story like that is from my dad, who was WW2 vet. After the war, he wound up in Japan and attended a conference where someone stepped up to the podium and introduced himself as General McArthur’s Chief Advisor. Or at least he thought he did…

The word for advisor is komon. The word for asshole or anus is koumon. Basically, you just hold out the first o out slightly longer and it switches to the other word.

I used to have trouble with RPN calculators until I realized it’s better to think in Japanese.

For example, when I go:

3 enter 5 plus 2 divide

I’m thinking:

san to go tasi-te ni-de waru

It just feels more natural.