This is a tree.
Arthur said, “didn’t you already take a picture of that tree?”
I said, “No, it was that other tree.”
Actually, I wasn’t sure. Anyway, at least this one’s from a different angle.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Day: March 8, 2019
Caveat: Subway Philosophy
[This is a cross-post from my other blog.]
Someday, I will return to work on my great metropolis, Villa Constitución. And when that day comes, I shall take on the huge project of refactoring the complex subway system I designed.
When designing subways, one should have a philosophy of subways in mind. Here is an essay every subway designer must read: “Stoppism: Retrospects and Prospects“.*
*Footnote for the dense: the linked article is satire – a gorgeous, brilliant joke.
Music to design subways by: Silvio Rodríguez, “Santiago de Chile.”
Caveat: Backend changes
I’ve been a bit anti-social lately – more so than usual. I’m struggling with the feeling that my life is “on hold.”
So I’ve retreated into some computer stuff I probably could have done quite a while ago.
I’ve created a new host-space for my blog-photos, which doesn’t affect the blog’s appearance but which solves a problem that I’ve had since last fall, when I was forced to migrate from my prior blog hosting provider (Typepad) to my own wordpress platform, due to the former’s technical intransigence and poor support.
So all new photos are at my new host-space (also self-hosted on my own server, now). Unfortunately, there is no fast way (that I’ve figured out, yet), to update all the old photos. So that will be a slow migration. There are 1000s of photos on this blog, given its more than 6000 entries. They are about 60-70% on the new host-space, but most of the “URL pointers” still point to the old host-space. So I need a fast find-replace for those URLs. I’m working on that. And for the third or so that are still in limbo on the Typepad version of the blog, it’ll be an even slower slog – they need to be “rescued” from there, hopefully before I’m forced to pay another year’s membership to prevent them from being lost forever. Typepad, being a for-profit business, provides no easy way to get these photos in bulk – you must open each one and save it, one-by-one.
I’m also working on learning (re-learning? did I ever know it?) some basics of Ruby on Rails programming, so that I can move forward on some web platforms I’d been messing with before leaving with Korea, and that have been on hold for the last year or so. I’m trying to get Eclipse IDE to work with the remote server, but it seems very buggy. I need to maybe find a different IDE.
What I’m listening to right now.
Joan Baez, “Silver Dagger.”
Lyrics
Don’t sing love songs, you’ll wake my mother
She’s sleeping here right by my side
And in her right hand a silver dagger
She says that I can’t be your bride
“All men are false”, says my mother
“They’ll tell you wicked, lovin’ lies
The very next evening, they’ll court another
Leave you alone to pine and sigh”
My daddy is a handsome devil
He’s got a chain five miles long
And on every link a heart does dangle
Of another maid he’s loved and wronged
Go court another tender maiden
And hope that she will be your wife
For I’ve been warned, and I’ve decided
To sleep alone all of my life
Caveat: Poem #950 “Misanthropy”
ㅁ When people annoy I turn to my computer and program something.
– a pseudo-haiku.