- ASCII characters are not pixels: a deep dive into ASCII rendering - This is not a casual read! It's a super deep dive into image-to-ASCII rendering.
- BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) - Use your computer to help advance scientific research by downloading scientific computing jobs and running them in the background. Check out their projects page.
- Gourmet - Condé Nast forgot to renew the trademark for Gourmet magazine (shuttered in 2009) so a group of journalists took it over and revived it as a worker-owned venture producing biweekly newsletters. Subscription only but you can read some content in the archives.
I just love this piece! It reminds me of going to the mall when I was a teen and checking out the black light posters in stores like Spencers. I wish there were more patterns like this. I tried searching and found some that were close but not quite the vibe I was going for and also so much AI slop. Barf. I posted this to the r/crossstitch subreddit and the pattern designer commented on it! They said they made the pattern because they also wanted patterns that looked like UV posters but couldn't find any. They also gave me some links to some similar-ish designs but nothing really scratched my itch. I think what I really want is like stoner album art. Anyway! Next piece I'll be working on is another in the series of the cat video games.
I've been plugging away at earning faction points in Everquest 2 and I think I'm getting burnt out on that. I keep going on quests and all the entities I'm trying to get faction with remain indifferent to me. Well, except for the Far Sea Merchants and The Irontoe Brigade. I feel like I give and give and I'm just not good enough for them.
Much like in real life, I have a problem in that I have a small house and a lot of stuff. My EQ house vault is stuffed with backpacks full of goodies I've gotten from special day events and quests. It just dawned on me recently that, in EQ at least, I can have more than one house. So I think I might go about renting some more real estate and have themed dwellings. This thought is exciting me much more than going on endless faction quests for ungrateful NPCs.
Listening
Some podcasts I listened to this week:
Reading
February was a slow reading month overall but I finished it off by reading 2 books in one week. The first one was Cat's People by Tanya Guerrero. I found out about this from one of the people I follow on Bluesky - she was doing a 30 books in 30 days series of postings and this was one of them. It's a really sweet story about a street cat, the people he encounters, and how all their lives intertwine. The second book was The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar - a delightful fantasy about events from 500 years ago narrated by someone who was there.
Watching
The newest season of Call the Midwife is available and I've watched up to episode 6. I think I've mentioned it before but this is the last season before this series goes on "hiatus" and the creators start a new series with some of the same characters but set in the 1940s. I don't think the current timeline is going on hiatus, I think they are actually going to finish it. But I am looking forward to seeing some of the Sisters of Nonnatus House and what they were up to in the war years.
Best Son asked if I wanted to watch Shin Godzilla and of course I did so he came over today and we watched it. I'm watching Godzilla movies in order for my Godzilla Chronicles and this is way down the list from where I'm at but I'm going to go ahead and do a write up on it.
I love archaeology and anthropology and there are several YouTube channels I follow that focus on that:
- Ancient Americas - Really well done videos covering pre-Columbian history in North and South America.
- Archaeology Southwest - Organization in Tucson, Arizona that practices preservation archaeology. They hold "Archaeology Cafe" episodes on their channel which are always really interesting talks. Last year they did a whole series about dogs.
- Desert Lore - This channel isn't just about archaeology - Ben Woodruff covers a wide variety of topics including history, geology, bushcraft skills. He takes you to sites (usually in the Southwest but he's gone to other areas, too) and often uses a lidar camera so you get a better look at the entirety of a site.
- Inside Archaeology - Lots of archaeology content including monthly roundups of discoveries, interviews and reviews/playthroughs of games that have an archaeology theme.
- Stefan Milo - When he first started making videos he was known as the guy who talks into a spoon, due to clipping his mike onto a plastic spoon. He's since upgraded his equipment but his videos have always been super interesting. He typically focuses on the deep past. He also has a channel on Nebula.
- World of Antiquity - Dr. Miano takes you on journeys exploring archaeological sites all over the world and discusses various artifacts, ancient myths and mysteries.
Link Lagniappe
- list animals until failure - like it says on the tin, list as many animals as you can in the time alloted!
- Color Game - you'll be shown a color and then asked to recreate it. Easy! Or is it?
- On Contrarian History - Post from Dr Eleanor Janega, medieval historian, who has a rant about the term "Dark Ages"
- The Other Almanac - Maybe you have to be of a certain age to be familiar with The Old Farmer’s Almanac but this book is a reimagining of it, updated for the current world, and including content not found in the original.
- When You Hear What Happens When They Put Lab Mice in Nature, You Might Rethink Your Entire Life - Lab mice might be healthier and give better results if they didn't ... live in a lab
- Why the world is running out of frankincense
- The evolution of expendability: Why some ants traded armor for numbers
- Brain Blends Fast and Slow Signals to Shape Human Thought
- itiner-e, the digital atlas of ancient roads
- Unraveling the JPEG
When I first started using Zonelets I had Disqus set up as a commenting system but it looked obnoxiously ugly and I ditched it. Some people are happy to not have blog interaction but I'd love to hear from you if you have any thoughts you want to share! You can respond through my guestbook or email. If you found this link on Discord or the 32-Bit Cafe Discourse, you can message me there or leave a message on my Neocities profile page.