I detest bad writing

I have received a long-winded, weasely, vague threat from someone demanding that I confirm receipt of his fuzzy undefined accusation. This is that confirmation.

Hi, id: 2026-08-26-02:05:21:987t
I’m reaching out directly in connection with content posted on your channel. I’ve found content that appears to originate from work I created, and I wanted to get in touch with you first before making any decision to raise the matter through the platform’s formal process.
I haven’t submitted a report at the moment. Before moving forward, I’d like to hear what you have to say and better understand your position about the use of this material.
When I hear back from you, I can give you the specific information regarding the material and explain what concerns me regarding the content I’ve noticed. If there’s additional context or an explanation from your side, I’ll take any relevant context into account.
My first preference is to address the situation directly and see if we can resolve it without using the platform’s formal process. From my perspective offers both of us enough opportunity to consider the matter before taking additional action.
If we can’t find a reasonable way forward, I may then consider raising the matter formally and including the appropriate information for consideration through the platform’s review process.
Before anything further, please confirm that you’ve seen my communication and are prepared to discuss the matter. When I hear from you, I’ll provide the information I’ve identified so we can determine how best to proceed.
Thank you for reading this. Hopefully we can work this out directly.
All the best.

I dread the moment he explains what the fuck he wants to complain about, because if this is an example of his circuitous writing style, it’s going to be painful to read. I think he thinks he’s a lawyer, a bad lawyer, who can’t be forthright.

I’ll let you know when he manages to shake the soggy cornmeal out of his head and tells me what he thinks I’ve plagiarized, since that’s what he’s actually accusing me of.

If the electorate were rational…

We wouldn’t have these problems. Everyone has to see that Trump is insane, right?

He’s picking a trade war with Canada, our ally and partner. <a href=”https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/trump-lake-ontario-lake-america-name-change-trade-war-canada-escalates/6539930>Canada is retaliating. We’re going to feel it in the form of toilet paper shortages soon. If he doesn’t get his way, he’s threatening to demolish the Kennedy Center — and he’ll do it, just like he tore down the East Wing. Most petty of all, he threatens to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America. Since when does the US president have authority over geography? He doesn’t.

These events are just the latest in his history of idiotic, self-defeating policy decisions by an incompetent bully. When will it become obvious to the other branches of the so-called distributed balance of federal power? Oh, wait, they know. The Senate and Supreme Court are enabling it.

But we really have to blame the American voter. Latest example: they’ve made Darline Graham* the Republican nominee to replace her dead brother. She’s not qualified. Her only ‘virtue’ is blood, and she got elected solely because she’s a member of the tribe. That tribal thinking is what’s going to get more Republicans elected in November.

We are so screwed.

*My mother’s name was Darlene, with an “e”. I’m not happy to see it dragged through the news attached to that smooth-brained Southern dingleberry.

Grisly & horrible

Sometimes my spiders make me queasy. This is the reality of nature, though.

I fed my Parasteatoda a mealworm this morning, and sadly, the spider was not particularly effective in killing its prey. It’s been gnawing on the worm for over 4 hours, while it writhes and twitches. It was frantically writhing away most of the day as the spider clung to it, nibbling.

Spiders are predators, you know.

The image quality is bad because I recorded it through the plexiglas of its container. At least it blunts the horror.

Definitely not for kids.

Another sleepless night

I was up at 2am again last night, and now I’m really tired. The reason is right here:

That’s my mailbox. It’s located under the eaves of my garage roof, and you might have to look closely to see it, but it’s covered with bat poop. I’ve gone out with a garden hose a few times and cleaned it off, but every night, without fail, a swarm of bats emerges from the voluminous (and unused) storage space above my garage, lightens their load with a quick evacuation, and then flits off to diminish the local mosquito population. From the amount of bat crap we see, I think we’ve got an impressively large colony of bats inhabiting our garage.

That’s fine. I like bats. I’m happy to provide a shelter for the local population, and while I’m not thrilled that they’re voiding their bowels over my mailbox, it’s always over the back half, so it doesn’t interfere with human uses of the mailbox.

But then, every once in a while, a bat somehow finds its way into my house, and they don’t like it. Late last night I heard a scratching and scuffling at the blinds in my bedroom, and then…flutter flutter flutter. I turned on the lights, waking up my wife, who looked up and saw this brown beast running laps around the room, going around and around in circles, with me putting on a robe and running to my office to get my butterfly net.

It was very exciting and a bit chaotic for a while. I was sweeping that net around, mostly missing (bats are agile critters), and banging into ceiling light fixture, which eventually broke and fell to the floor with a crash of breaking glass. Eventually I swished the net just right and captured the bat, which I took out the back door and released.

All that disruption meant we were now fully awake and it took a while to get back to sleep, briefly, because the alarm goes off at 5am so Mary can get to work on time.

I raise spiders and house a swarm of bats. Is my dream of becoming the Addams Family coming true?

An interesting, but arbitrary, engineering exercise

The World Humanoid Robot Games took place in Beijing a few days ago. They’re fascinating and baffling to watch.

That “Humanoid” in the title is clearly a significant constraint that artificially forces the human creators into making some very bad design choices. But why? No practical devices will be built with that limitation: in the races, for instance, if you’re going to mimic biology, you ought to go for four or six legs, and why bother to imitate an animal, just put wheels on the goddamn thing. What are the advantages of requiring your running robot to clumsily use a bipedal form? I suppose it’s an exercise in building limbs to a difficult and ultimately stupid specification, but why?

It is kind of menacing and intimidating to see a field of soldier-like robots, but only because we carry along associations with human armies. When I’m someday hiding in the post-apocalyptic rubble waiting for the Chinese Robot Army to kill me, I’m not going to worry about the bipedal ersatz human tripping awkwardly through broken terrain, I’m going to be scared of the flying drone with lasers, or the rat robot scuttling through wreckage to drop a grenade at my feet. The robots at the games are just comical.

In more benign situations, I’m not bothered by a machine being able to run faster than I can — I’m used to that. An autonomous e-bike could beat those robots easily.

The video focuses on the failures, which is a little unfair. I was actually impressed most with how some of them compensated for failure. They fell down, and then smoothly pivoted and twisted and stood right back up, unless they caught on fire, of course. There’s some really good and clever design work going on there. There needs to be, because people are bad models for high-performance physical activity.

I do have questions. Are these robots required to operate autonomously? If there is some Chinese nerd hunkered down behind walls of monitors with a joystick and keyboard, triggering series of pre-programmed routines, I’m much less impressed. If they’re run by AIs with massive datacenters trying to model human behavior, I’m also unimpressed, other than by the raw wastefulness of the exercise. I’m also curious about maintenance. Sure, you can fire off actuators to move a limb at a high rate of speed, but for how long before one burns out? And if losing one little electronic piston sends your whole elaborate robot with its sensors and cameras and expensive circuitry crumpling against a wall, what’s the cost-effectiveness or reliability of the robot?

I suppose there will be some long-term return on investment trying to solve those little problems, but I think the first solution is to ditch the stupid “humanoid” restriction and design machines that do specific tasks well.

Survival: Day One

I made it! I got through the first day of classes without passing out or having my pants fall down! There are a few things I have to work on, though.

  • No one wanted to talk. I had multiple questions for them and invited them to express their ideas, and as usual, they were reluctant. They were probably afraid of my fierce attitude. After I tore the tape off their mouths and managed to refrain from thrusting my fingers into their eye sockets and ripping out their skull and vertebral column, they started warming up and I got some responsiveness out of them. There is a lot of promise there and I think I’ll get them contributing more soon. Or, you know, eye sockets, skulls, vertebral columns, etc.
  • I think most of them failed to read the paper I’d assigned in the syllabus! That fact may have accounted for their fear of speaking up, beyond just shyness. I gave them an incentive to look it over, though: I told them I know where I’m going to get a lot of questions for the quiz that they’ll get on Friday, which is even better than skull ripping at getting students to do the reading.

I did have a little problem I had last year — my voice starts to give out on me before the class is over. I managed to muscle through it and make my voice heard. I have to resume a habit I started last semester — having a cup of hot tea before class.

I will march into that classroom confidently!

I woke up a 2am last night, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I also didn’t feel like getting up. I know the reason: today is the first day of classes, and I always feel some low-level anxiety before getting up in front of 30 strangers and talking for an hour. The one thing I’ve learned in 45+ years of this business is how to hide it.

I’m really good at concealing the fact that my guts are writhing and my brain is whirling and I’m sure I’ll forget what I’m supposed to say as soon as I step up to the lectern. I just refuse to let it show.

Also, don’t you dare tell me to imagine my audience naked — these are 19-20 year old students, the thought of that would send my anxiety through the roof and also would be morally wrong.

Support your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!

J. Jonah Jameson got his way and Minneapolis Spider-Man was unjustly arrested, alongside arch-criminal and career racist Jake Lang. Fortunately, there is a friendly neighborhood GoFundMe to support him!

I am raising funds for SPIDER-MAN, a Minneapolis antifascist superhero! On August 22, 2026, Nazi provocateur Jake Lang came to our city to rally fellow racists to his cause. Community members showed up to protest, and SPIDER-MAN was among them. Bravely defying a phalanx of MPD officers, he taught the Nazi a lesson he will not soon forget. But then! After letting the Nazi get away, the MPD officers tackled SPIDER-MAN to the ground and arrested him!

Minneapolis, let’s stand up for SPIDER-MAN the way he stood up for us. This money will go directly to him to defray the costs of bail, legal fees, or whatever else he decides to use it for.

I bet they’ll take your donations even if you aren’t from Minneapolis.

Another right-wing hater squashed by Minnesota

This state is a magnet for the worst of the worst. Jake Lang, in a repeat visit to the state, discovered how we handle these creeps.

Hundreds of people were outside of the Minneapolis City Hall for a counter protest against Lang at noon.

Lang arrived in Minneapolis on Saturday to advocate for a Rochester woman who called a Black autistic child a racial slur, according to a profane-ridden post on his X account. In a post on X earlier this week, Mayor Jacob Frey told people to stay away from the rally.

“Let this lame-ass racist rally fall flat and fade into irrelevance,” he wrote.

No, Jacob, let him face the state’s wrath. Also, Jacob Frey can shut the fuck up about “both sides.”

January 6th rioter and far-right instigator Jake Lang held another “hate rally” on Saturday, and it was quickly drowned out by crowds of Minneapolis counterprotesters, including the city’s own Spider-Man.

Minneapolis police (MPD) and protesters clashed after Lang drove along a sidewalk in front of City Hall, and MPD and private security seemed to shield Lang.

Lang first tried to hold an anti-Muslim rally on Jan. 18, which was also met by Minneapolis protesters and eventually led to him being chased out of the area. He announced last month on social media that he would be returning to City Hall to lead a “peaceful Freedom of Speech” rally, though Saturday’s attempt at a rally was no different from January’s, with over 100 counterprotesters already holding their own demonstration in front of City Hall during the time Lang was scheduled to be there.

In total, fewer than a dozen individuals showed up for Lang’s scheduled rally. Lang and six others, including far-right activist Jayden Scott, showed their faces briefly when they decided to drive along the sidewalk that was initially barricaded.

The decision caused chaos, as crowds of protesters gathered around the cars to attack Lang before pepper spray was deployed by a man dressed as a law enforcement officer who appeared to be working for Lang. Protesters threw water balloons, bottles, glitter, and more at the group, as they tried to pull the offensive signs away from the instigators.

At one point, a man dressed as Spider-Man jumped onto the back of Lang’s truck and began attacking Lang before the superhero impersonator was pulled away. Lang was later photographed being arrested by Minneapolis police.

The mayor and the police are pretty much useless, but at least we’ve got Spider-Man on our side.

Here is the best photo of the event.

Yay Minnesota Spider-Man!