angelastic

[angelastic]

Some debugging techniques, and when to use them

I started writing this post in 2020 (it was last edited in August that year) but at some point decided everybody knew this stuff and there was no point posting it. Well, Stewart Lynch’s talk at Deep Dish Swift reminded me that there’s always somebody who doesn’t know something. Besides that, I originally got the idea for this by noticing things that my co-workers were not doing. I am attending…

[angelastic]

Captain Quark and Juratron Park, JoCo Cruise and other news

Last year on JoCo Cruise, Aimee Mann sang a song called The Ballad of Captain Quark — the song title having been suggested by ChatGPT as a typical Jonathan Coulton song title: This year, one of the theme days on the cruise was Captain Day, so obviously I had to dress as Captain Quark. I got a custom captain’s hat and some ‘Quark’s Bar‘ pyjama pants, and wore them with a ‘one quark, two quark,…

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Circles (Soul Coughing parody lyrics)

These lyrics are to be sung to the tune of ‘Circles’ by Soul Coughing. They refer to the proposition that we use tau (τ) defined as 2π, instead of pi (π), counterarguments to that, and neverending friendly rivalries about it. When you were younger you were taught a circle formulaThat its perimeter is πd, that is, 2πrπd gets you all round the circleAll around the circle, all around the circleAll…

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Because 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' isn't going to rewatch itself

Back in 2014 I recorded Hank Green talking about ‘picking the right addiction’ after a performance of his song ‘The Man Who Throws The Tetris Piece’. He said (with a few bits edited out so it makes more sense in text): I’ve spent a fair amount of time addicted to Tetris, growing up. And now I spend about the same amount of time addicted to Flappy Bird — I’m not saying I’ve grown up at all. I…

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Lifetiler for macOS: it's like a temperature quilt for your life

TL; DR: I wrote a macOS app called Lifetiler that can be used to chart your life with an emoji or colour for each day, and you can download it here. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I was in a long-distance relationship with Joey Marianer for several years. We met on JoCo Cruise, communicated a lot on FaceTime, and visited each other a few times a year when possible. Eventually…

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This is when the [poster] wall comes down

Here’s a video in which I take down my posters in my apartment in Vienna, in order to pack them up to move to the USA. It includes improvised song parodies and silly jokes from Joey Marianer and myself. I took this video partly to have a record of my poster wall (though I also have a photo of it which I sometimes use as a Zoom background) and partly because if I get permission to do so, I’ll…

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New versions of NastyWriter and NiceWriter

[angelastic]

Dumb Parody Ideas at FuMPFest 2024

FuMPFest is a funny music festival put on by the Funny Music Project, which I had never attended in-person because it’s not worth travelling from Austria to the USA for just a weekend. But now that I live in the USA, I finally got to go! It was put on as part of Con on the Cob, and was quite similar to the comedy music track at MarsCon (also run by people from The FuMP), which I have been to a…

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I swam halfway across the Atlantic Ocean, and now I live in the USA

I keep thinking I shouldn’t post here until I’ve processed more of my photos and videos, updated my apps so I’ll look better for potential future employers, etc, but if I did that, the post would be absurdly long and late. This situation is of course fractal — I keep thinking I shouldn’t release my apps until I’ve fixed all those bugs, got everything working in VoiceOver, etc., but if I did that…

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My year is only going to get weirder, so I'd better fill you in.

A lot has happened so far this year, and a lot more is about to happen. I have pics, so it did happen. TL; DR: I saw K’s Choice again, went to CERN again, went on the JoCo Cruise again, and will be moving to the USA in August. Just read the blue ‘Visa news’ section and the August part if you want to know how the US visa process went. January: K’s Choice in Gent 🇺🇸Visa newsIn mid-January, I got…

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We did a Christmas

I’m visiting Joey Marianer for Christmas, so we sang a slowed-down cover of a Worm Quartet song, as Joey is wont to do. Worm Quartet is also known as Timothy F. Crist, so we wished everyone a merry Timothy F. Cristmas at the end. I hope you had one of those, whatever it means. I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t celebrate such a talented comedy musician. I did actually try some of that eggnog…

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This Tiling Never Repeats (Split Enz parody)

I mentioned in a previous post that I was working on a parody of History Never Repeats, by Split Enz, about the aperiodic monotiles that have been found recently. I’ve finished it, so here are the lyrics: This tiling never repeatsUnending plane the kite and dart completeWe wish to show we can improveWe may assume, there’s always more to proveIt was the best we used to knowFrom David Smith, a…

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The "The Captain's Wife's Lament" Lament, and Seven Bridges (of Königsberg) Road

About a week ago, me hearty Joey Marianer recorded three songs (two of which I wrote) while I slept! I meant to post about them on Talk Like a Pirate Day, but ended up not being home all day. Nonetheless, I’ll start with the pirate shanty. This might not make much sense to you if you’re not familiar with Paul and Storm; it’s a parody of one of their songs, about the lengthy live performances of…

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A few mathematical numbers

My last post had Joey Marianer (to whom I was flabbergasted to be married) singing some lyrics I wrote, and mentioned that we would soon be at the MathsJam Annual Gathering, and that I’d uploaded all my JoCo Cruise footage for that year. Well, in my aperiodic compiling of blog entries, I have reached a familiar local pattern. Joey (to whom I am still gobsmacked to be married) has sung more lyrics…

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Joey sang some more parody lyrics I wrote, and another Hallelujah

Joey sang some more parody lyrics I wrote, and another Hallelujah

Joey Marianer (to whom, and I cannot stress this enough, I am 💖married❣️) was asked to sing some computer-related songs at a company all-hands meeting, and chose The Bad Coder’s Favourite Things (one of several parodies I’ve written of ‘My Favourite Things’) as one of them. It’s the third one, after Joey’s own ‘Inbox Zero’ (a new addition to our growing list of Hallelujah parodies) and Les…

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Linguistic Alternative Polka ("Weird Al" Yankovic parody lyrics)

Linguistic Alternative Polka (“Weird Al” Yankovic parody lyrics)

Here are some linguistics-related parody lyrics I wrote to “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Alternative Polka”. I’ve grouped them into numbered topics, with notes below explaining what each part is about. The topic switches don’t necessarily match the transitions between song snippets in the original. Soy un perdedor‘I’m a loser’, baby,it means that in Spanish.Everybody!Soy un perdedor‘I’m a loser’,…

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Was just thinking this myself but googled it first because I was sure I wouldn’t be the first to say it.

“Trans men are real men, trans women are real women and trans small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri are real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.”

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Douglas Adams, sort of