spring 2025 update

A smart guy from debate said I was 'academically elite', which is nice to hear because he would have herd that from this other smart guy from debate so with them together I'm probably dining at the table of success.

I do civil now. Bye mechanical I never even liked combine harvesters. I'm taking my skill and giving it to the people (SEPTA hmu). Switching means I had some credits that wouldn't count for anything, that means I could do some withdraws. Why not cut some fingers off if you weren't going to be using them? Grades don't matter so grades that don't matter especially don't matter. Does withdrawing machine theory make me a failure? Yes absolutely. I've been microdosing honorable suicide by clutching my chest and grunting ever since.

The wrong lesson from debate is that if you write a convincing enough essay the rules melt and bend around you. I've been including a few sentences in every exam problem to justify my answers rhetorically if not numerically. We got the nastiest curve in dynamic systems (another class that doesn't matter anymore rip). I answered half those questions with what I would have done if I were smart enough to do the calculations. I was getting up from my seat every five minutes to ask the professor questions mid test. I was like a lawyer for differential equations. That test owed me court money. I'm different because I have a problem with not knowing things. I'd beat ignorance with a crowbar if I could. Dynamic systems was probably the most fun test I'd ever taken. All the questions just outside of what I understood, but I studied like hell on the theory so if felt like I had the tools to solve a series of puzzles (or explain how I would solve a series of puzzles if I could). Excellent class, I like linear algebra and matrices they satisfy some kind of bulking efficiency urge. Studying it made me feel like a wizard.

I did fine on thermo fluids and econ too. Those were less exciting they had regular curves. Machine theory was such a disappointment. How do you design the parts of a gear shaft? You follow the standards and the standards came from trial and error. They had no theory for anything it all turned into sprawling empirical-numerical slop. It was the ugliest calculation I've seen since like microeconomics and they were treating it like it was more then a hopeful approximation (like microeconomics). That class killed mechanical for me. There was no vision. What does this gearbox do for the people? Who cares what does it do for you.

on some local birds

I think chickadees would like to be called chickadees, and wrens would like to be called wrens. I'm not sure a 'grey catbird' would like that.

I write outside so I got to see a dead branch fall rather stupidly out of a tree.

on software and computers

Somebody said computer culture is insular and masturbatory (yeah). So I'm trying to share more. I've turned the sloppy and ephemeral webmaker into the cute sturdy and durable stamp. It can now automatically update to git and I've cleaned it into a single file that shouldn't be that hard to configure. The old name 'webmaker' was purely descriptive I hate the word 'maker' it makes me feel like I'm back in the middle school gifted program not feeling gifted enough. A makerspace is just a room with a 3D printer, and I've never wanted to 3D print in my life.

Expect some more computer guides in the future. I'm trying to dump this knowledge onto someone else.