Wednesday  29 Mar 2023           comment?

At right, an excerpt of a plane tiled by a recently-announced 13‑sided shape that, according to a proof that was longer than I felt like following, can only tile the plane aperiodically. The darkest-colored instances of the tile in this image are mirrored with respect to all the other instances. It's not every day that you hear about an interesting 13‑gon. Details and stuff here.

Sunday  26 Mar 2023           comment?

Yesterday I saw an error in a German language Wikipedia page but didn't fix it because I wasn't confident that what I'd write would be idiomatic. I instead noted the error in the article's talk page in the hope that someone more proficient would make the change—which happened within three hours. Wikipedia rocks.

Wednesday  22 Mar 2023           comment?

A climber from my neighborhood died last week from a climbing accident, more specifically a rappelling accident. As far as I know, he's the only person I've climbed with to have died from the sport. I last saw him on February 16.

I went climbing today, the first time since he died. I've been at this long enough to be aware of the dangers involved but I felt particularly aware of them today. It didn't make it harder to climb but it made things seem especially real.

Last year my doctor told me he quit flying airplanes. He had flown for over 1000 hours without an accident and stopping would allow that good safety record to stand. I'm not quite ready to stop climbing--I'm younger than my doctor.

Thursday  16 Mar 2023           comment?

that moment when the pilot realizes he forgot to turn off the oven

Monday  13 Mar 2023           comment?

Friday  10 Mar 2023           comment?

The combination of last month's snow and last night's rain has rearranged some stuff here.

I'll need to get this tank moved somewhere else on my lot. Before the propane company can come up to do that, I'll have to fill in some mondo ruts in my driveway.

Rain is expected to continue through the rest of today. Fun times.

Wednesday  08 Mar 2023           1 comment

Do you know any dogs with middle names?

I've seen people give their dogs surnames to match their own, a gesture of acknowledging the dog as a family member. But today I learned that a friend's dog has a middle name as well.