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I have two fantasies involving cars. On the one hand, I wish I owned a Mercury Colony Park. Historians are unsure which car Christ drove,1 but I tend to think it was a Mercury Colony Park. From an aesthetic perspective, the Mercury Colony Park simply is the ideal car. Yet, this longing will never be satisfied. Ere I was born, the Mercury Colony Parks grew old and world-weary. So they sailed to the undying lands. No mortal man has seen one since. But I have another car-related fantasy, this one…
I have known a lot of conspiracy theorists. I spent much of my teens in the American homeschooling subculture, which exposes one to the lunatic fringe of evangelical conservatism.1 I encountered some vanilla conspiracies which hardly register as weird to me. The 2020 election were apparently stolen, vaccines gave all of us the autism.2 Jet fuel, I was oft assured, cannot melt steel beams. But a lot of it was more recherché. FDR bombed Pearl Harbor. The Earth might be flat. Jews were agents of…
I recently brewed some hard peach cider (I think peach and apple taste good together). I used three quarts of sweet cider and one quart of peach juice, used wine yeast because I didn't feel like buying a dedicated cider yeast. Forgot to record the starting gravity, but it was in the 5-7% range, about where you expect ciders to be. I bottled it yesterday. It's not terrible, but it's not great either. The peach flavor definitely comes through, but the apples have contributed a sour Granmy Smith…
Awhile ago, I heard someone describe a bad Newgrounds animation as slop. This seemed wrong to me at the time, but I had trouble articulating why. I think I can now. Slop is not merely bad content, nor is it merely low-effort content. Non-professional singing is often bad, and it is typically quite low-effort, but it is certainly not slop. Neither is a child's drawing. A let's play can be quite low-effort, and it can be low-quality, but that would not make it slop. Specifically, slop is…
Special interests are the most easily depathologized facet of autism, but they can still make one's life more difficult than it needs to be. Recently, a friend's reputation suffered because he spent four hours nonconsensually telling his coworkers about anime. I could regale you with many similar stories from my adolescence, but that would unearth many deeply cringeworthy memories, and I can't do that on a worknight. When you're obsessed with something, you will compose monologues about it. You…
In theological discussions, people will often say "most Christians accepted such and such a theological position" or "most Christians read this part of the Bible such and such a way." But this is rarely true. Throughout history, the vast majority of Christians have been illiterate, and thus had no chance to read the Bible. Of course, most of them heard plenty of it in church, but who knows how much attention they paid to it or what they thought about it. And I seriously doubt most of them have…
When I was a kid, sandboxy block games were all the rage. But, you basically had to choose between Minecraft and Shitty Knockoffs of Minecraft.1 A few of them were fairly high quality and creative. But, generally, "Minecraft clone" meant "derivative slop." So far as I can tell, this is no longer the case. If you want to play "Minecraft but it's good at being a survival game," you can play Vintage Story. If you want to play "Minecraft but it's good at being an RPG," you can play Hytale. If you…
Notoriously, children get very angry at very minor things. I think I've figured out why. If you're an adult and you've got to go to bed early, that's kind of annoying. But, you've got some perspective. Far worse things have happened to you. But, if you're three, you don't have that. Having to go to bed early might well be one of the top ten worst things that's ever happened to you. So that's how you respond.
People on the internet have a weirdly negative attitude towards work. When I see someone on the internet talking about their job, they're usually unhappy about it. When I hear people talk about their jobs in real life, they're much more neutral or positive. Occasionally, someone mentions that they had to work 16 hours that week, or they say that their boss bullies them until they cry. But this is the exception rather the rule. This puzzled me for awhile, but I think this is just negativity…
For most of our history, a vast majority of Christians have believed in eternal torment. Today, this doctrine is falling on hard times. The truly traditional view -- that Hell is a fiery place where God will eternally torture his enemies -- has mostly fallen out of fashion. Most thoughtful Christians have moved to the self-imposed C.S. Lewis Hell, which often turns out to be eternal mild unpleasantness. In some quarters, even quite conservative ones, it's increasingly acceptable to believe in…
I previously suggested Five Technologies I'd Love to See. But, on reflection, there are yet more potential technologies we all desperately need. As before, some are more fanciful (and serious) than others. 1. Adaptive Floor Surfaces. Carpets are very nice when it's cold, but they have a tendency to be irrevocably stained. So, let's compromise. We invent a material which is trained to become fluffy in the winter, but it becomes hard in the Summer (or right before you spill something on it). 2.…
People sometimes say that autistic children "seem older" than they are. When I was a kid, I supposedly seemed older than I was. But, the more I think about it, the less I think this is what happened. I didn't seem older, I just seemed very unlike a little boy. A normal boy will be interested in cocomelon and violent video games. By contrast, a certain sort of autistic boy will be obsessed with bus routes or fire extinguishers. If shit really hits the fan, he may learn what "supralapsarianism"…
I have no particular problem with marijuana. I even tried marijuana once (and decided it was overrated).1 However, I find myself increasingly annoyed with people who vape in public. Look, if you need to get pot into your system, I will not stop you. Take an edible. Or one of those newfangled syrup things. Or vape in the privacy of your own home among consenting adults. I don't really care. But please do not vape next to me. And, especially, please do not exhale your fumes onto me. I did not…
Technology has given us a lot of cool things. I'm a fan of vaccines and ibuprofen. You can now talk to your friends and family basically anywhere. The Norwegians invented kveik beer yeast. Thanks to the internet, a solid chunk of human knowledge is just sitting there basically for free. They've even started making mildly sycophantic mentats to predigest it for you. And we have dating apps. Doesn't everyone love dating apps? But, this is surely a fraction of what could be. There are many…
In Making Good Wine for a Change, I started two batches of wine. One was a Chardonnay, one was a Merlot Mead. The Chardonnay finished awhile ago, and it just tastes like Chardonnay. I think I'd like it a bit clearer, so I've racked it again and am letting it sit for a bit. I checked on the Merlot mead for the second time today. I tasted a bit a few weeks ago, and thought it tasted fine but needed a bit more honey taste. So, I added about 0.3 pounds of honey and let it ferment more -- made it a…
I now have a full - time job which pays fairly well (at least for a college student). This means I can afford lots of nice honey. And more bottles, along with contraptions to cork and cap them. If I'm nasty, I can even slap pretty labels on them. At the same time, my friends and family have learned from experience that I am not making Prison Wine. And a dear friend has encouraged me to date Renn Fair Girls. Ergo, my motivation to brew has increased substantially. So, I thought I'd write down a…
Currently, my father is building a massive spreadsheet which is intended to disprove evolution. He's spent hours writing code which was intended to disprove evolution. He spends much of his free time reading creationist books and watching creationist documentaries, often the same ones over again. He goes for the less obviously wrong old - Earth types — your Michael Behes and Stephen Meyerses, all those people at the Discovery Institute. I don't know if my father is autistic. It certainly comes…
Awhile ago, I mentioned my homebrewing hobby to my mom, and she suggested I make applejack.1 Apparently, some of our ancestors made applejack within living memory. If you don't know, applejack is freeze - distilled cider. Ethanol has a lower freezing point than water. So, if you get a bunch of hard cider really cold, the water will freeze first, and you're left with something more alcoholic than you started with. Unfortunately, you also concentrate nasty things, like fusels. Fusels give you…
Modern Christians have an odd habit of forming theological views by exegeting C.S. Lewis. Many people take their understanding of demons from The Screwtape Letters. A popular view of Hell is wholly derived from The Great Divorce. I know of one bishop who justified patriarchy by reference to Lewis's bizarre science fiction novel, Perelandra.1 I've had this thought before. But, it only occurred to me now because I heard someone quoting Aslan as though he were Jesus. That made no sense to me.…
I am autistic, and I have a variety of Very Shitty Sensory Problems. When I was a child, a number of foodstuffs were almost unimaginably repulsive to me: ranch dressing, most meats, very sweet things, steamed vegetables—it was really a very long list. And I had trouble with loud noises. Until pretty recently, concerts and ball games seemed like torture to me. Thankfully, these problems have abated somewhat. I have purposefully trained myself out of them: I've done sound therapy for hyperacusis,…
Sometimes, I hear people criticize corporations when they do stuff for pride month. They think none of the businesses have any real principles, and they're just trying to pander to LGBT people and those who care about us. I think this is usually true--some businesses probably are doing it to express their genuine beliefs, but most of them just want to make money. But this tells you something very important: they think they can make money by pandering to queer people. There's no way in Hell this…
The Perfect GodIn Western religions, God is traditionally said to be infinite, personal, and perfect. He may be immutable or mutable, the greatest conceivable being or Being itself. But, He is omnipotent, morally perfect, and personal. This is the conception of God which is most popular in my culture, and it is certainly emotionally satisfying. By definition, this is the greatest God one could have. I was raised with this conception of God, and most of my coreligionists have always believed in…
I recently visited my parents in my hometown, and it made me very melancholy. I was homesick. I was nostalgic in its most literal etymological sense: "the pain of returning home." I had come back to the place where I was raised. I saw the schools I had gone to as a child, I visited my childhood church. I met some of my childhood friends. I drove by my childhood home. But none of them were as I remembered them. All of them had changed. They were subtly unfamiliar in a million different ways.…
Hypnagogia is the transitional state between waking and sleeping. As you might guess, a hypgnagogic hallucination is when you start hearing or seeing something as you're falling asleep. In popular culture, hypnagogic hallucinations are usually presented as something frightening. But, having had them all my life, this has rarely been my experience. I might see simple geometric figures or feel myself floating. Sometimes, I see noise take over my visual field, or I see an asortment of indistinct…
It turns out that I could graduate college a semester early. I'd taken a lot of dual credit classes in high school, and that knocked out some of my gen ed stuff. Thinking about it a bit, I don't think I will. Of course, I've only just finished my sophomore year, so things could change. But, I think it would be a bad idea. American universities are nominally places of learning and professional training. But they are also a technology for forging social connections (and, sometimes, they are…
As it turns out, one can buy concentrates of various grape varietals on the internet. You can actually buy concentrates of other things there too. Having discovered once and for all that I can make wine, I have set out to determine whether I can make good wine. So, I ordered a couple concentrates, one Merlot and one Chardonnay. This is one of the great benefits of employment. So, I poured both of them into my large, 1.5 gallon pickling jars and mixed them up with water—gave both yeast nutrient…
School has finished, but I won't start my Summer job for another week or so, so I haven't had much to do. I've found myself replaying The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Even though I'm a little zoomer, this game was a big part of my childhood. My brother is substantially older than I am, and he'd grown up with an N64. I probably spent hours playing on it as a kid, it was my first introduction to video games. I'm a bit more than halfway through the game, and I've been enjoying it--partly…
For a long time, I didn't really use LLMs. I think GPT 4 came out right before I graduated high school, and I played around with it for a little. I had it write a silly poem for an English class — I think it involved Jordan Peterson making moonshine. But, so far as I could tell, everything it produced was very shitty. Sometimes amusingly shitty, but shitty nonetheless. It was an interesting toy, but it had no practical value. This remained my impression of LLMs for the next few years. And I…
Semi - recently, I guess I've recently become an adult. I didn't drink for awhile — mostly because I didn't like the taste of most beers or spirits.1 But, I've recently started, mostly because I discovered that brewing is fun. I've come to quite like drinking, mostly getting buzzed with friends while yapping or watching television. And I see nothing wrong with this; the Lord Himself is said to have rolled in a new keg at a party, after all.2 But drunkeness is a vice, and I'd prefer not to…
