Aegis J Hyena's Super Hyena Fun Show: Random Banter Thread #215

[FinnLassie]

There's the Brownies/Girl Guides in the UK (well, in England. I don't know about Scotland or Ireland), which are girls-only groups. The formerly named Boy Scouts have been co-ed for a while now though.

Ah yeah forgot about that. One of my friends switched from scouts to guides, mostly because they had a huge lack of leaders in her area (Fife-ish? can't remember right now where in Scotland she lives). *shrug*

[LaZodiac]

All I know about the Scouts/Guides is that up here, Boy Scouts are nothing like they are in the states (both groups are totally non secular) and that Girl Guides are a faction of Girl Scouts that sell cookies. Girl Scouts specifically teach the girls martial arts and defense techniques, and that a good portion of them could probably drop an adult.

Don't **** with Girl Scouts in Canada.

[Coidzor]

All I know about the Scouts/Guides is that up here, Boy Scouts are nothing like they are in the states (both groups are totally non secular) and that Girl Guides are a faction of Girl Scouts that sell cookies. Girl Scouts specifically teach the girls martial arts and defense techniques, and that a good portion of them could probably drop an adult.

Don't **** with Girl Scouts in Canada.

A cunning two-pronged attack of diabetes and broken ankles. That would tend to do it against most North American types, yeah.

[Grinner]

Um. I hate to break it to you, man, but you're not going to get much sound out if you don't have an oscillator. Like, you can make every other part that you like, but without oscillators, the best you're going to get are irregular clicks and thumps from poorly-coupled amplifier outputs.

Also, AC signals aren't that hard - you just have to treat certain circuit elements differently (usually energy storage elements like capacitors and inductors). And you can do lots of cool stuff with them - like make noise.

Actually, I think I may have figured out a way to generate sound with direct current. I've been thinking about asking about it in the Mad Science subforum, although I really should just build it and see if it works.

There was some musician who, when giving a speech at a convocation or something, asserted that music is not about making sound. Instead, he proposed, music is about framing silence. Electronically-generated sound is traditionally made by using alternating current. When the direction of the current switches, the diaphragm of a speaker on the circuit contracts and expands, creating a longitudinal pressure wave we call a sound wave. If these waves are created at a regular rate and intensity, you get a tone. In this way, sound is literally differentiated only by the moments of silence between sound waves.

At the risk of sounding tautological, the reason I think you get silence from direct current circuits is that there's nothing in the current which causes the diaphragm to jump. It simply contracts once and remains in that position until the current stops flowing. I think that if you were to pulse a direct current by way of an appropriately sized capacitor or series of capacitors, you could achieve an effect similar to the switching of polarity in AC as far as the speaker is concerned. That is, each pulse would equate to one jump of the diaphragm and thus one sound wave. Any given capacitor might thus produce a baseline tone which could be modulated by changing the current going into the capacitor.

It's possible that I've misunderstood the nature of AC-generated sound, and the reverse of polarity is actually needed to cause the diaphragm to move into its former position, thereby enabling the generation of further sound waves. If that's the case, then every sound wave actually correlates to every two switches of the current's direction (a complete wave?), which is behavior that I cannot mimic in DC. At least not without a really bizarre circuit.

Clearly, I need to study the subject further and verify that I've got the details right, but I feel pretty good about it.

[Qwertystop]

Actually, I think I may have figured out a way to generate sound with direct current. I've been thinking about asking about it in the Mad Science subforum, although I really should just build it and see if it works.

There was some musician who, when giving a speech at a convocation or something, asserted that music is not about making sound. Instead, he proposed, music is about framing silence. Electronically-generated sound is traditionally made by using alternating current. When the direction of the current switches, the diaphragm of a speaker on the circuit contracts and expands, creating a longitudinal pressure wave we call a sound wave. If these waves are created at a regular rate and intensity, you get a tone. In this way, sound is literally differentiated only by the moments of silence between sound waves.

At the risk of sounding tautological, the reason I think you get silence from direct current circuits is that there's nothing in the current which causes the diaphragm to jump. It simply contracts once and remains in that position until the current stops flowing. I think that if you were to pulse a direct current by way of an appropriately sized capacitor or series of capacitors, you could achieve an effect similar to the switching of polarity in AC as far as the speaker is concerned. That is, each pulse would equate to one jump of the diaphragm and thus one sound wave. Any given capacitor might thus produce a baseline tone which could be modulated by changing the current going into the capacitor.

It's possible that I've misunderstood the nature of AC-generated sound, and the reverse of polarity is actually needed to cause the diaphragm to move into its former position, thereby enabling the generation of further sound waves. If that's the case, then every sound wave actually correlates to every two switches of the current's direction (a complete wave?), which is behavior that I cannot mimic in DC. At least not without a really bizarre circuit.

Clearly, I need to study the subject further and verify that I've got the details right, but I feel pretty good about it.

Even if you're right (I don't know either), that seems like it would result in a DC current having roughly half the amplitude of an AC, because it's push-stop-push-stop instead of push-pull-push-pull. Also, the springiness of the diaphragm alone might not be enough to reset position fast enough, though it probably would reset quite quickly. At the very least, the sound would probably be fairly different - almost certainly quieter.

[Amidus Drexel]

There was some musician who, when giving a speech at a convocation or something, asserted that music is not about making sound. Instead, he proposed, music is about framing silence. Electronically-generated sound is traditionally made by using alternating current. When the direction of the current switches, the diaphragm of a speaker on the circuit contracts and expands, creating a longitudinal pressure wave we call a sound wave. If these waves are created at a regular rate and intensity, you get a tone. In this way, sound is literally differentiated only by the moments of silence between sound waves.

At the risk of sounding tautological, the reason I think you get silence from direct current circuits is that there's nothing in the current which causes the diaphragm to jump. It simply contracts once and remains in that position until the current stops flowing. I think that if you were to pulse a direct current by way of an appropriately sized capacitor or series of capacitors, you could achieve an effect similar to the switching of polarity in AC as far as the speaker is concerned. That is, each pulse would equate to one jump of the diaphragm and thus one sound wave. Any given capacitor might thus produce a baseline tone which could be modulated by changing the current going into the capacitor.

First things first - as soon as we start talking about time-varying electrical signals with a regular period - you're talking AC. As soon as you start caring about the transient nature of a system, you're not dealing with purely DC components anymore.

But you've got the right idea - in fact, the circuit you described is a pretty simple pulse -> triangle converter, using an integrator.

It's possible that I've misunderstood the nature of AC-generated sound, and the reverse of polarity is actually needed to cause the diaphragm to move into its former position, thereby enabling the generation of further sound waves. If that's the case, then every sound wave actually correlates to every two switches of the current's direction (a complete wave?), which is behavior that I cannot mimic in DC. At least not without a really bizarre circuit.

Clearly, I need to study the subject further and verify that I've got the details right, but I feel pretty good about it.

Yes - if you want to make sound, your signal has to both increase and decrease. Sound waves (and the electrical waves we send to speakers to generate them) are proper waves - and that brings us back to AC again.

You've got the general idea behind how sound is made down, physically speaking - you just need to brush up on the electrical side of things. If you have any questions, I and some other people around here (should) be able to answer them - or at least point you in the right direction.

Even if you're right (I don't know either), that seems like it would result in a DC current having roughly half the amplitude of an AC, because it's push-stop-push-stop instead of push-pull-push-pull.

Also, the springiness of the diaphragm alone might not be enough to reset position fast enough, though it probably would reset quite quickly.

At the very least, the sound would probably be fairly different - almost certainly quieter.

You've got the right idea, but you're looking at it a little skewed. The pulse wave that you're calling DC is half the amplitude of the second signal, because it only occupies half of the range.

And now you're getting into differential equations - but yes, there's no such thing as "instantaneous" response. Every change takes finite time.

Yes and no. If both of your signals have the same wave shape, then it should be roughly half as loud (though because human hearing is logarithmic, that isn't exactly right). If your signals have different wave shapes, however, it gets a little trickier. The larger-amplitude wave will probably still be louder, but if the smaller-amplitude wave has a lot more high-frequency harmonics than the larger-amplitude wave, it could sound louder (which has to do with how our ears respond to low-frequency sound - usually we perceive it as quieter even at the same amplitude). This is especially obvious with square waves and sine waves at low frequencies - the harmonic-rich square waves can be noticeably louder than pure sine tones at the same amplitude.

[factotum]

Just to jump in here, the sound system on the old ZX Spectrum* was essentially what Grinner is describing--there was a single bit that determined whether the speaker was fully in or fully out, and you generated sound by flipping that bit. It was absolutely amazing what sort of sound you could produce using this simple system--there were even games that produced (badly) synthesized speech!

* UK-built 8-bit home computer, for those who don't know--think a cheaper Commodore 64 without all the fancy graphics and sound hardware.

[Feytalist]

There was some musician who, when giving a speech at a convocation or something, asserted that music is not about making sound. Instead, he proposed, music is about framing silence.

Miles Davis, I believe.

"The real music is the silence and all the notes are only framing this silence."

[Aedilred]

Miles Davis, I believe.

"The real music is the silence and all the notes are only framing this silence."

I have a lot of respect for Miles Davis as a musician but that strikes me as one of those statements that seems profound at first glance until you think about it for a moment and realise it's pretentious, meaningless and exclusive of a large proportion of cases.

[Feytalist]

I have a lot of respect for Miles Davis as a musician but that strikes me as one of those statements that seems profound at first glance until you think about it for a moment and realise it's pretentious, meaningless and exclusive of a large proportion of cases.

You should read some of the other quotes attributed to him. I agree, he was a great musician, but... yeah. He was out there.

[FinnLassie]

*has another existential crisis*

*looks at everyone getting married around her*

*screams*

No way I'd marry someone without ever having met them in person. Come to the UK meetup in 10 days time and we can see how things go.

THUFIR STILL UP FOR IT?????????????? :smallsneakypanictongue:

What will my life become....

[TheWombatOfDoom]

So...I'm buying my first house tomorrow...

I think I'm going to gain enough experience from this encounter to level up...

[Qwertystop]

So...I'm buying my first house tomorrow...

I think I'm going to gain enough experience from this encounter to level up...

Congratulations!

[LaZodiac]

*has another existential crisis*

*looks at everyone getting married around her*

*screams*

THUFIR STILL UP FOR IT?????????????? :smallsneakypanictongue:

What will my life become....

Finn, don't go overboard now. Just take a deep breath and calm your head.

So...I'm buying my first house tomorrow...

I think I'm going to gain enough experience from this encounter to level up...

Good luck! Buy a nice house!

[FinnLassie]

So...I'm buying my first house tomorrow...

I think I'm going to gain enough experience from this encounter to level up...

OOOh! oooh! Is it an actual housey house, or an apartment, what is it what is iiit?

When are you gonna invite me to your new house

[TheWombatOfDoom]

OOOh! oooh! Is it an actual housey house, or an apartment, what is it what is iiit?

When are you gonna invite me to your new house

Good luck! Buy a nice house!

Congratulations!

It's a house along a row, and its got a basement and 3 bedrooms and a tree. Not much of a yard, but that's okay for now. Still not the biggest check I've written (thank you college). I'll get my own studio now, in any case, so that's nice. Invitation is open if you travel to America, so long as we are available at the time and you happen to be nearby!

Thank you for the congratulations and luck, Qwerty and Zodi!

[TaiLiu]

It's a house along a row, and its got a basement and 3 bedrooms and a tree. Not much of a yard, but that's okay for now. Still not the biggest check I've written (thank you college). I'll get my own studio now, in any case, so that's nice. Invitation is open if you travel to America, so long as we are available at the time and you happen to be nearby!

Oo! Take pictures!

[Kneenibble]

Apropos of music, the piano teacher I've been seeing lately was not able to continue lessons over the summer, so I started a summer class playing the piano alongside three violins. I've always wanted to play in a group, and it's my first time. We're doing an arrangement with piano of this piece by Telemann. It's a little funny because the other players are high school students on their summer break, and then me the weird old guy breezing down on his lunch break in a suit and tie.

Cool! It's always cool to have a house stay in the family like that. Gives it a soul.

I appreciate this comment.

I have a lot of respect for Miles Davis as a musician but that strikes me as one of those statements that seems profound at first glance until you think about it for a moment and realise it's pretentious, meaningless and exclusive of a large proportion of cases.

Your comment is so delicious and dry, I want to butter it and have it for breakfast.

*has another existential crisis*

*looks at everyone getting married around her*

*screams*

I went to a Mennonite high school and a large proportion of my graduating class was married and pregnant before I even started University. Even the fellows. There is nothing more beautiful and life-affirming than a glowingly pregnant Mennonite gentleman. But it, too, made me feel barren and twirling down the existential whirlpool. What is the solution? I can only surmise that it involves a quantity of budgies: but I cannot be certaigne.

It's a house along a row, and its got a basement and 3 bedrooms and a tree. Not much of a yard, but that's okay for now. Still not the biggest check I've written (thank you college). I'll get my own studio now, in any case, so that's nice. Invitation is open if you travel to America, so long as we are available at the time and you happen to be nearby!

Thank you for the congratulations and luck, Qwerty and Zodi!

Further congratulations and luck. What kind of tree do you have? May I plant you a garden?


There are a few conversations from a while ago, by the way, that I intend to pick up. No rudeness intended.


Now WHAR BE OVIS *bangs a calabash of palm toddy against a polished sandstone countertop*

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Further congratulations and luck. What kind of tree do you have? May I plant you a garden?

Me thinks its a Dogwood, but I haven't thoroughly examined it. I'll let you know. We are planning on gardening, but first there is a forest of weeds to obliterate. I'm actually for some reason looking forward to that work, but ultimately I'll likely need to buy some gardening supplies like a trowel or some such. I've assisted my mother in gardening, but this will be my first garden, and my wife's as well! I'm thinking the plots in the back of the house will be for utility like basil, tomatoes, ect, and the front will be for show, such as flowers.

[FinnLassie]

I went to a Mennonite high school and a large proportion of my graduating class was married and pregnant before I even started University. Even the fellows. There is nothing more beautiful and life-affirming than a glowingly pregnant Mennonite gentleman. But it, too, made me feel barren and twirling down the existential whirlpool. What is the solution? I can only surmise that it involves a quantity of budgies: but I cannot be certaigne.

*gasps*
The men were pregnant too?!

Canada is even weirder than I had initially thought.

[Grinner]

Even if you're right (I don't know either), that seems like it would result in a DC current having roughly half the amplitude of an AC, because it's push-stop-push-stop instead of push-pull-push-pull. Also, the springiness of the diaphragm alone might not be enough to reset position fast enough, though it probably would reset quite quickly. At the very least, the sound would probably be fairly different - almost certainly quieter.

I've done a little more research on the subject, and as I don't wish to leave you with a less accurate understanding of the concept, I'd like to share with you what I learned.

After consulting a certain book, I've learned that there isn't really any push-pull action as far as the electrical components of a speaker are concerned. Speakers use a wire coil wrapped around a permanent magnet to create sound. The magnet produces a constant magnetic field, and electricity running through the coil causes the coil to produce its own magnetic field. When the two fields interact in the right way, the wire coil vibrates, causing the diaphragm to vibrate and thus producing sound waves. However, in order for the coil to vibrate, the magnetic field produced by the coil must vary or else I imagine it would reach a state of equilibrium with the magnet's magnetic field, so the current running through the coil must vary to vary the resulting magnetic field.

Conventional alternating current works by increasing or decreasing the electric current until it hits some peak or nadir, at which point the progression reverses. In fact, I'd bet that if you soldered a power cable directly to a speaker and plugged it into a power outlet in America, it would produce a low tone since American electrical systems use AC electricity which switches sixty times a second, resulting in 60 Hz sound waves. Direct current doesn't vary the intensity of the current, so the coil and magnet in the speaker only produce an initial sound wave and then hit a point of balance.

First things first - as soon as we start talking about time-varying electrical signals with a regular period - you're talking AC. As soon as you start caring about the transient nature of a system, you're not dealing with purely DC components anymore.

So the AC/DC distinction is more of a naming convention than a description of how the current flows? For example, even though the current in my circuit idea flows only in one direction, it's still considered AC?

You've got the general idea behind how sound is made down, physically speaking - you just need to brush up on the electrical side of things. If you have any questions, I and some other people around here (should) be able to answer them - or at least point you in the right direction.

Okay. I've nailed down how speakers work, and considering factotum's response, I almost certain now that the circuit outlined earlier will work. I need to figure out what sort of input devices I can use or create to vary the current going into the capacitor (aside from using variable resistors to change the frequency) and how to incorporate them in a modular fashion. With all that in mind, what do you think I could improve on electricity-wise?

[Amidus Drexel]

So the AC/DC distinction is more of a naming convention than a description of how the current flows? For example, even though the current in my circuit idea flows only in one direction, it's still considered AC?

Well, you said it yourself here -

Conventional alternating current works by increasing or decreasing the electric current until it hits some peak or nadir, at which point the progression reverses.

It's all relative. If we're talking speakers, what matters is that the current changes (as a dynamic current is what generates the magnetic field) - not what polarity the input is. When people refer to DC signals or signal components, they're almost always talking about a signal that doesn't vary with time. When people talk about AC signals or signal components, they generally mean the periodic part of the signal - when we're talking about audio - this is the part that generates most of the sound. (there are some exceptions - one might drive a DC motor with a PWM signal to run it at a lower speed - which is strictly speaking, a combination of AC and DC signals, but in reality you'd treat it as a digital high/low signal (which is usually modeled as DC) - like you were talking about earlier. When we're more interested in a frequency-domain perspective of the signal than a time-domain perspective, though (such as in audio, for example), then we usually call pulse signals AC)

(If we're being technical, you can actually consider a unipolar signal as some number of traditional AC signals centered at 0 and some DC offset - for example, a sine wave that goes from 0V to 5V can be treated as a 2.5V DC signal and a 5Vpp (peak to peak) AC sine signal centered at 0V. With the right circuit components, you can separate those pieces out and isolate them electrically - this is referred to as AC coupling or DC coupling)

Okay. I've nailed down how speakers work, and considering factotum's response, I almost certain now that the circuit outlined earlier will work. I need to figure out what sort of input devices I can use or create to vary the current going into the capacitor (aside from using variable resistors to change the frequency) and how to incorporate them in a modular fashion. With all that in mind, what do you think I could improve on electricity-wise?

If I were you, I'd take a look at RC circuits (and RLC circuits), then maybe try putting together an astable 555-timer circuit or a relaxation oscillator circuit (probably the best two RC oscillators I've come across). It'd be good for you to get a little signal and circuit theory under your belt, but you'll probably learn just as much (or more) by looking up schematics and building prototypes as you will learning the formal theory behind all the electronics.

[Grinner]

If I were you, I'd take a look at RC circuits (and RLC circuits), then maybe try putting together an astable 555-timer circuit or a relaxation oscillator circuit (probably the best two RC oscillators I've come across). It'd be good for you to get a little signal and circuit theory under your belt, but you'll probably learn just as much (or more) by looking up schematics and building prototypes as you will learning the formal theory behind all the electronics.

Alright. It's a bit weird thinking about things in terms of time and frequency, but I've got some idea of how to proceed now.

Thanks for the help, and good luck with your own project.

[Kneenibble]

Last night brought a great-grandmother of a Prairie thunderstorm. All day the air was like getting slapped in the face with a hot wet towel, and then in the evening the Apocalypse happened. The temperature fell by over ten degrees in an hour and everything went almost as black as night. Now with a high-up balcony apartment, I got a perfect view of the bright purple lightning all across the sky. After a while the rain thickened and the sky turned that weird green colour that presages tornadoes, and indeed there were several spotted in the area if not in the city itself. Close to sunset the sky in the west opened up and cast a perfect double rainbow all across the sky and illuminated the departing storm clouds in gold and red. It was a glorious spectacle.

Well, you did take me on a one day hike through a forest practically blue with berries, so unless you claim there to be two kinds of blueberries at the same time, I'm confident in knowing exactly what I'm talking about.

Confronted with the truth, and unwilling to reveal that he is stuffed to bursting with especially flavourful European blueberries bought at a dear price, Kneenibble attempts to escape.

Spoiler

Show

No, my toughest problem to juggle has only really been the influence. I've had a pair of times when the influence income was stuck at zero and I basically could do nothing at all with an influence cost. Although this was solved by sharing the gift of technology to every pre-space age civilization in my territory, combined with an expansionist policy. Lots of protectorates means lots of yummy influence to fuel the subject integration industry.

Military speaking, I haven't had any problems at all. The Knibbles are good researchers and quickly allied a friendly, stronger (at that time) empire across the Fanatical Purger which bordered them. After that, no one dared to jump on the Knibbles, who were left to develop their weaponry in peace. When the Prethoryn Swarm decided to take the drop on the galaxy, the Grand Star Flock made short work of their fleets (Tachyon Lances are super effective) and could mop them out of the galaxy with only a few uninhabited planets on the casualty tally. I also decided to spread the word of the federation to one of the nearby fallen empires, as the Prethoryn were building stations within their borders where I couldn't clean them out. It later turned out that station cleaning wasn't strictly necessary, I only had to get rid of their planets. In fact, I was probably a bit too quick in defeating the Prethoryn, as I never got the chance to get the Queening achievement. Oh well...

My current goal is to punch liberate my way through my largest rival/punching bag until I reach the fallen empire they've managed to corner in the other end. Then I'm going to lower the shield on the shield world I found there to see what's inside. It would be fun to loose some cosmic terror on them while the planet is still in their territory, but if it's something beneficial, I want to be the first to reach it, and I'm confident that the aforementioned 100k fleet can handle anything under that tiny shield with impunity.

Whoa, protectorates grant influence? I've gotten a little frustrated with the diplomacy system, how a carefully cultivated relationship can suddenly turn irreversibly hostile because of perceived threat. The most recent example in my game with the mushroom cult: I had a good relationship with an empire, built up with gifts and the beginnings of an alliance, even having wormhole station access in their space. Well, I was single-handedly protecting the galaxy from the Prethoryn, who spawned on the opposite side of a ring galaxy and had infested a third of its space before I could get close enough to help. I systematically wiped them out, but a single ship escaped into this Empire's space and started to rebuild the Scourge from there. With wormhole station access, I was able to get in and stamp out the last of their presence, but then the Empire considered me a threat and turned hostile from +50ish opinion down to -300.

And, of course, since the Prethoryn spawned on the other side of the galaxy, I wasn't able to get the Queen achievement in time either. Some punk beat me to it. The worst part of this situation is that after I saved the galaxy without so much as a half-penny's worth of help from anybody else, another Empire took advantage of my weakened fleets, declared war, and devastated me. Brutal.

I'm quite curious what the Knibbles will find on that shield world... may the Fluff Continuum protect them in their way. It sounds like your playstyle is rather more noble than mine has been with the mushroom brainwashers.

I'm very much of a night-owl, and much of this can be attributed to not getting tired when bedtime rolls around. Instead, I get tired somewhere between 16 and 19, and if I've been somewhat restrictive with my sleep, like I've been for the past few days (not severely so, just enough to never completely refresh myself), then its somewhere within this interval that I'm going to crash on my bed, which I just did. This is bad, because 1. it'll be even harder to fall asleep at a reasonable time now, and 2. I needed to go grocery shopping. My refrigerator is kinda empty.

I mean, I still could go shopping, as the stores don't close for yet another hour, but my head is kinda woozy from combined sleep grog and blood sugar deficiency...

The evening nap is a pernicious, debilitating vice. There is no better way to enervate oneself for the rest of the evening and the following day as well. I, too, have suffered the addiction. I know exactly what cured me of its grip, but of course our physiologies and lifestyles are very different, so my precedent might not help you at all.

ION: For those of you that remember what I was working on a month ago... My little analog synth is coming along quite nicely. I've got a much better main oscillator now (it has probably twice the range and is way more stable than what I was using before), and I've also got an active filter working, which starts to oscillate itself if you crank the resonance all the way up. I've got schematics for an envelope generator and a few other odds and ends I plan to add to it, but I need to order more parts (it seems I'm short on diodes and 1M pots).

Will you kindly share a recording of the voice of this mad science?

Me thinks its a Dogwood, but I haven't thoroughly examined it. I'll let you know. We are planning on gardening, but first there is a forest of weeds to obliterate. I'm actually for some reason looking forward to that work, but ultimately I'll likely need to buy some gardening supplies like a trowel or some such. I've assisted my mother in gardening, but this will be my first garden, and my wife's as well! I'm thinking the plots in the back of the house will be for utility like basil, tomatoes, ect, and the front will be for show, such as flowers.

Dogwoods are lovely -- if memory serves, they're an early blossomer in spring while many flowers are still sleepy and have a pleasant, mild smell. I envy you, getting to build a garden from scratch. Happy growing.

*gasps*
The men were pregnant too?!

Canada is even weirder than I had initially thought.

Yes: and they protect themselves during that vulnerable stage with their pet geese. A well-trained Canada goose will fiercely defend its Mennonite, even unto personal harm: and nobody trains a goose more finely than a Mennonite. It is an important level of safety in this hard Canadian land ravaged by the aggression of nesting beavers and rampaging meese.

[LaZodiac]

Last night brought a great-grandmother of a Prairie thunderstorm. All day the air was like getting slapped in the face with a hot wet towel, and then in the evening the Apocalypse happened. The temperature fell by over ten degrees in an hour and everything went almost as black as night. Now with a high-up balcony apartment, I got a perfect view of the bright purple lightning all across the sky. After a while the rain thickened and the sky turned that weird green colour that presages tornadoes, and indeed there were several spotted in the area if not in the city itself. Close to sunset the sky in the west opened up and cast a perfect double rainbow all across the sky and illuminated the departing storm clouds in gold and red. It was a glorious spectacle.

Hope you enjoyed it! I sent it down from up here with my constant chants of "**** I left my wallet at home I hope I don't have to walk home in this storm ah ****."

Oh also hey all my friends here who don't follow my quasi professional stuff. I recently updated my Patreon page with neat stuff go check it out if you want I guess.

[Teddy]

WELP my gramps again was like WELL WE ARE PROBS GON' SELL THIS EH. YOU GET THE MONEY FROM IT. GOOD START FOR BUYING A HOUSE. Oh dear lord this is not about money it's about keeping something dear to me still alive and well cared. This will likely be a back and forth conversation with my grandfather for the next year... Great. Just great.

That self-sacrificing attitude some elderly can adopt where they believe they're nothing but a weight on their descendents shoulders can be a tough nut to crack. I mean, unless they just really host ill spirits toward the house and just want to get rid of it, in which case it's another story...

I was supposed to write clean. Damn it. But it's also rather clear for a lake that's somewhat surrounded by summer cottages... usually those lakes kinda start to get bad over the years because of stupid people. And yeah no wouldn't drink from it, but the water is super soft and it did miracles to my hair. *swoops hair back and forth* *imagine sparkles* *this is so soft* *hnnngh*

Hmm, to be fair, "clear" is not an adjective I associate with low-land lakes at all, but that's probably because most lakes I associate with are in the middle of the Norrland forests, and those are stained brown by soil pigments from the surrounding coniferous forests even when they're fully drinkable.

Oh ew no the sea is like one of the most horrible things I know I really don't like the texture of the sea... ugh...

*Imagines Finn on a Half-Life 2 cliff overlooking the sea, expressing her disgust in some suitably ridiculous G-Mod style way*

Can't do. I have to use stuff that's only sold in pharmacies and they cost like 15 euros a can. Ain't got no money fo' dat.

Oh. Sensitive skin?

It's a house along a row, and its got a basement and 3 bedrooms and a tree. Not much of a yard, but that's okay for now. Still not the biggest check I've written (thank you college). I'll get my own studio now, in any case, so that's nice. Invitation is open if you travel to America, so long as we are available at the time and you happen to be nearby!

Must. Plan. Second. Tour.

Apropos of music, the piano teacher I've been seeing lately was not able to continue lessons over the summer, so I started a summer class playing the piano alongside three violins. I've always wanted to play in a group, and it's my first time. We're doing an arrangement with piano of this piece by Telemann. It's a little funny because the other players are high school students on their summer break, and then me the weird old guy breezing down on his lunch break in a suit and tie.

They probably find it quite cool, I'd guess.

I appreciate this comment.

My biggest fear with our ancestral farm regards how it's going to be split among my generation. Right now it's owned by dad and aunt, and a 50/50 split works swimmingly, but when we 5 children inherits it, things are going to get complicated. 5 families are too many to handle at once (3 would be pushing it), so then we'd need to start scheduling, and we'll have to stay hopeful that there won't be any problems cropping up.

And even if we dodge every bullet for this generation, the next generation is probably going to get it even worse. I've heard my dad lament the abolishment of "oldest (son) inherits the property laws", not because he likes the injustice of it, but because the current system means family heirlooms are split per default and too valuable property (like real estate) is divided in ownership until conflicts over maintenance and usage rights are near guaranteed to arise. I can understand that sentiment, the future of Näset is important to me as we all in both our families have really strong ties to the farm.

ION:
Pokémon Go has really made me appreciate public art much more than I did before. I've both found new nuggets (the "Duckomobile"), and rediscovered some installations which really had turn into visual static in my everyday life. Like the Spiral Gateway to Geometry at my university campus. Or the Alien Kickboxer which I'm constantly afraid of getting impaled on the foot of when I'm running down one of the staircases. Or the "Concrete Slab with Coincidence" which lies next to the nearby engineering laboratory building. The coincidence in question actually looks disturbingly much like a Floraverse angel. Despite not having felt any depression-amnesia next to it, I do feel a little worried by this...

@Kneen:
I'll respond to you tomorrow. I just had this post fully complete (but for a section about TTL which I think I'll scratch for now), and it's too late to start writing up more content...

[Feytalist]

So I have worked just under 60 hours this week. I don't even rightly know where I am at the moment. Free time? What even is that.

I went to a Mennonite high school and a large proportion of my graduating class was married and pregnant before I even started University. Even the fellows. There is nothing more beautiful and life-affirming than a glowingly pregnant Mennonite gentleman. But it, too, made me feel barren and twirling down the existential whirlpool. What is the solution? I can only surmise that it involves a quantity of budgies: but I cannot be certaigne.

I misread "budgies" as "bourbon" at first. But I guess that works too


So this time of the year is rainbow season over here. There's patchy rainclouds almost every day, and around the time I leave for work, the rain, and sun's angle conspire to create almost painfully sharp rainbows, right in front me of as I drive. Almost every day, the exact same time. Today, I could not only see the first and second rainbow, I could see the beginnings of the third rainbow hiding between the two.

I swear, one day I am going to have an accident from looking at rainbows.

[goto124]

Good thing you're not on a planet with two suns, then

[FinnLassie]

Yes: and they protect themselves during that vulnerable stage with their pet geese. A well-trained Canada goose will fiercely defend its Mennonite, even unto personal harm: and nobody trains a goose more finely than a Mennonite. It is an important level of safety in this hard Canadian land ravaged by the aggression of nesting beavers and rampaging meese.

Pregnant men in Canada seem to be a very assertive kind of people, although I have to say that pregnant women do not need such extra caution. Us uterus-people just... live with it.

That reminds me, could you please talk to your Canada geese representative and ask them to stop invading Finnish soil? K thx. Will provide fruits for birb.
*doesn't know if I should have nightmares or be intrigued by "hard Canadian land ravaged"*
*scolds brain*

[Elemental]

Speaking of avian representatives... I saw a rosella lately and it conjured up a weird feeling of homesickness. It has been entirely too long since I've posted here and I miss you guys a lot more than I realised.

And yes, after many studies I can confirm that pregnant Canadian men are very assertive. The geese are as much to protect us from them as they are to protect them from us.