Get it back baby

Put the chaos to bed.

The World's Grown Honest

The Bearer:

Like all his people he felt at home in the forest.

The silence beneath great trees, the dimness there,

The distant high rustling of foliage, the clumps

Of fern like little green fountains, patches of sunlight,

Patches of moss and lichen, the occasional

Undergrowth of hazel and holly, was he aware

Of all this? On the contrary his unawareness

Was a kind of gratification, a sense of comfort

And repose even in the strain of running day

After day. He had been aware of the prairies.

He had known he hated the sky so vast, the wind

Roaring in the grasses, and the brightness that

Hurt his eyes. Now he hated nothing; nor could he

Feel anything but the urgency that compelled him

Onward continually. "May I not forget, may I

Not forget," he said to himself over and over.

When he saw three ravens rise on their awkward

Wings from the forest floor perhaps seventy-five

Ells ahead of him, he said, "Three ravens,"

And immediately forgot them. "May I not forget,"

He said, and repeated again in his mind the exact

Words he had memorized, the message that was

Important and depressing, which made him feel

Worry and happiness at the same time, a peculiar

Elation. At last he came to his people far

In the darkness. He smiled and spoke his words,

And he looked intently into their eyes gleaming

In firelight. He cried when they cried. No rest

For his lungs. He flinched and lay down while they

Began to kill him with clubs and heavy stones.

Hayden Carruth.

We Are Ruled By Abusers

Rep. Max Miller: "My former wife has claimed that during a custody exchange at my home that day, I assaulted her…If I had assaulted her, would she have offered to cook me dinner six days later?" pic.twitter.com/1IhkykMWpw

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) August 2, 2026

Six days later?  Hell, I regularly cooked for Ericka¹ quite literally the same day she gave me black eyes or strangled me or told me to kill myself.  That is dispositive of absolutely nothing.  

Everybody needs to really understand domestic violence dynamics better.  I find the current political climate to be especially triggering because all these abusive assholes are in power and flaunting their impunity, and gaslighting so much even our abuser would find it beyond the pale.

Selah.

1 - I mean, I did always do the cooking since the very beginning of our relationship.  We all would've starved to death if I refused just because she treated me like shit.

Yeah, it's gone, daddy, gone

The love is gone away.

Le Passeur

The giver (for Berdis):

If the hope of giving

is to love the living,

the giver risks madness

in the act of giving.

Some such lesson I seemed to see

in the faces that surrounded me.

Needy and blind, unhopeful, unlifted,

what gift would give them the gift to be gifted?

          The giver is no less adrift

          than those who are clamouring for the gift.

If they cannot claim it, if it is not there,

if their empty fingers beat the empty air

and the giver goes down on his knees in prayer

knows that all of his giving has been for naught

and that nothing was ever what he thought

and turns in his guilty bed to stare

at the starving multitudes standing there

and rises from bed to curse at heaven,

he must yet understand that to whom much is given

much will be taken, and justly so:

I cannot tell how much I owe.

James Baldwin.

For the Gilt of France (O Guilt Indeed!)

Coincidentally, I fired up Henry V last night because there were no WNBA games on, and I just noticed that on this date in 1415, Sir Thomas Grey was executed for his role in the Southampton Plot.  Seems like a good excuse to make a little blog post.

I've remarked before that I prefer Branagh's film to Olivier's, and the traitors scene is one reason why.  The former excised it and pretty much all icky feelings and whatnot, which is a damn shame:

The Olivier film was shot near the end of the Second World War and dedicated to memory of English military sacrifice, specifically to the "Commandos and Airborne Troops of Great Britain the spirit of whose ancestors it has humbly attempted to recapture." A film explicitly and unapologetically of the moment of its production, its audience a war-weary Britain in need of an emotional boost, it understandably portrays Henry and his war as benignly patriotic, eliminating any moral or ethical ambiguity in the king and any sense of fractured will among his troops.

Gone are Henry's seemingly sadistic threats to the citizens of Harfleur (3.1). Gone is the traitor scene (2.2) -- replaced by expansive pageantry and a dumb show of Henry's pious devotion before the troops set off to storm the beaches of Normandy. Gone is the sense, in the play's opening scene, of faction among the English governing powers, replaced by clerical slapstick. Gone is the nuance built even into the play's most apparently jingoistic moments. Olivier stripped the danger from the bickering captains and the personality from the French lords, reducing both groups to caricatures.

What remains is a bluntly-realized Merrie Olde English past, exemplified by the film's spectacular opening model effect, a shining and splendid Shakespearean London straddling a pristine, glimmering Thames.

Branagh's 1989 film, on the other hand, was made for a film audience whose view of war had been conditioned by the failed adventure of Vietnam, honed by the many films that captured the disillusionment of the following generation, and given point by the British conflict with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1982, a controversial and much-politicized military victory.

I guess given his different historical epocha, I'll cut Sir Lawrence some slack on his cinematic choices.  After all, if little faults proceeding on distemper shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye when capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested, appear before us?

Selah.

Verily, I say unto you

The days spoken of in the Apocalypse are nigh!

There Is a Wisdom That Is Woe

Misgivings:

When ocean-clouds over inland hills

Sweep storming in late autumn brown,

And horror the sodden valley fills,

And the spire falls crashing in the town,

I muse upon my country’s ills—

The tempest bursting from the waste of Time

On the world’s fairest hope linked with man’s foulest crime.

Nature’s dark side is heeded now—

(Ah! optimist-cheer disheartened flown)—

A child may read the moody brow

Of yon black mountain lone.

With shouts the torrents down the gorges go,

And storms are formed behind the storm we feel:

The hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel.

Herman Melville.

Писатели — инженеры человеческих душ

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A post shared by N. Todd Pritsky (@ntoddp)

It is a sunny, relatively cool, pleasantly breezy day.  Sitting in my corner of the yard, thinking about maybe motivating to mow or otherwise putter, but I'd rather just be.  Looking up at the trees moving in the light wind, I am reminded of one of my favorite short stories from the Soviet era, Yury Olesha's Love (Любовь)

First, the Russian:

Он подумал: « Деревья встречают Лелю овацией». Дальтоник ошибался, но Шувалов ошибался еще грубее.

По-английски:

He thought: "The trees are greeting Lelya with an ovation." The colorblind man was mistaken, but Shuvalov was even more mistaken.

Also reminds me of a particular shroom trip with a couple buddies in college - which in turn reminds me of the paper I wrote about The Grand Inquisitor, in Russian, whilst shrooming - but let's not get into that now.

Ahem.  So anywayz...I originally was going to use the story's last line ("Go and eat blue pears") for my post title, but decided to go for a deeper cut with "writers are engineers of human souls."  Seemed fitting for our new AI-plagued Stalinist era.

Selah.

“Man must explore. And this is exploration at its greatest.”

Meant to post about this yesterday, but I was pretty wiped from a long day battling with sandbox limitations and permissions while building out a new lab¹, not to mention a long week, month, year, uh...yeah, I'm pretty tired generally, although in better shape than astronauts after an EVA on the lunar surface.

Anyway, Dave and Jim got to bust out some new wheels on July 31.  Chaikin:

It would have been a strange sight, had anyone been there to witness it: a four-wheeled craft heading out among the craters, bearing two space-suited men. The Rover was less a car than a spacecraft on wheels, with its own navigation computer, communications system, and cargo space for such essentials as maps, geology tools—and moon rocks. 

For all its sophisticated technology, there was still a hobby-shop look to this moon car, with its antennas and folding lawn-chair seats and tool racks. It had been designed, built and tested by Boeing in less than two years; the success of the mission rode on it. 

Aboard Rover 1, the ride was more exciting than anyone, including Scott and Irwin, had banked on. Though the Rover averaged only 5 to 7 miles an hour, it seemed more than fast enough to the two men perched atop it. Every time the Rover hit a bump—and the “plain” at Hadley was all bumps and hollows—it took flight. Each new obstacle set one or two wheels off the ground for a long moment. 

As an added encumbrance, the steering on the Rover’s front wheels was inexplicably out of commission, forcing Scott to rely on the rear-wheel steering alone. The ride was especially harrowing for Jim Irwin, who felt as though he were strapped onto a bucking bronco, especially when Scott had to swerve to avoid a crater. The transmissions from the Rover were punctuated every so often with a warning from Scott—“Hang on!”—followed by Irwin’s grin-and-bear-it laughter. 

Scott and Irwin were having as much trouble gauging distance on the airless, treeless moon as everyone had before them. But they were in no danger of losing their way, thanks to the Rover’s navigation system; it clicked off readings of heading and distance as Scott drove. Irwin, meanwhile, followed along on the photo map. Aside from the usual difficulty in recognizing landmarks, the maps were misleading: 

Many of the craters and bumps that looked so prominent on the over-enhanced photos were barely noticeable on the real moon. But one landmark was impossible to miss, and as the Rover headed southwest, over the undulating mare, both men suddenly caught sight of it: “There’s the rille!” For a time, they followed the canyon’s curving edge, then stopped at Elbow crater to gather samples. Soon they were driving again, heading uphill toward St. George; Scott could feel the difference.

Scott:

Once released, the rover—our “Moon car”—slowly descended to the surface; a brilliant piece of engineering with sealed electric motors in the hub of each wheel. After securing its joints with pins, I climbed aboard to test its operation. Almost immediately, I realized that there was a problem with the front steering. 

This was perfectly manageable with rear steering and eventually righted itself. Even so it was a pretty bumpy ride. After loading a rack at the rear with the geological equipment we would need for our first day of exploration we climbed aboard—something of a challenge since the suits did not bend easily into a seated position—and started the engines. 

Driving the rover was actually more like flying an airplane, albeit with four wheels, than driving a car. Instead of a steering wheel, which would have been very difficult to grasp in our bulky suits, it was controlled with a joystick mounted on a control console between my seat and Jim’s. 

Despite our maximum speed of only 7 or 8 mph, the reduced gravity and very irregular surface meant one or more of the independently suspended wheels lifted away from the surface every time we hit uneven terrain. No part of the lunar surface was totally flat or even. It was all rolling and irregular with a wide variety of small and large craters, some with debris inside. 

Maneuvering around the larger craters and across this combination of rolling hummocks and fine- to coarse-grained lunar soil required intense concentration. Driving into the sun was the most difficult, since the glare caused a “wash-out” of the surface features. Though the rover could turn on a dime and had very good traction and power, the wire-mesh wheels kicked up impressive rooster-tails of dust, which were deflected by large fenders. It all made for a ride like a cross between a bucking bronco and a small boat in a heavy swell. 

“This really is a rockin’ and rollin’ ride. Hang on,” I told Jim as we headed southwest in the direction of the first of our destinations, Elbow Crater and the northeast flank of St. George Crater on the lower flank of Mt. Hadley Delta.

Why they were there (Scott):

Each stopping point on our three days of lunar traverses had been selected to allow us to examine contrasting aspects of the Moon’s complex geology, much of which was largely a mystery. Our ultimate goal was to throw light on the origin of our nearest galactic neighbor—which had long been the source of speculation and serious scientific debate. Greater knowledge about the Moon’s genesis was expected to throw more light on the origin of our own planet, of the Sun and of our entire solar system. 

Over time three competing theories about the origin of the Moon had evolved. The so-called “sister” theory held that the Earth and the Moon were born at the same time and of the same cloud of gas and dust. The “spouse” theory held that the Moon was born in another part of the solar system and had been forced into wedlock with our planet after moving into the Earth’s gravitational field. According to the “daughter” theory, the Moon was born of the Earth, splitting off very early on.

I bet even Michael Jackson would be exhausted after a moonwalk (Chaikin):

The mountains of the moon captivated Jim Irwin, just as he knew they would. That anticipation had been with him yesterday as he followed Scott down Falcon’s ladder. When he put his weight on the footpad, it tipped so suddenly that he went reeling backward, hanging on with one hand, until he was gazing almost straight up at the sparkling blue world he had left behind. Regaining his balance, he took his first buoyant steps into the valley, and could not suppress his elation. 

The Apennines were not gray or brown as he had expected, but golden in the light of lunar morning. Their rounded, dust-covered forms reminded him of ski slopes—Dollar and Half Dollar mountains at Sun Valley. He was surprised to find that a place others had called stark and desolate could feel so friendly. The mountains surrounded Hadley Base like a cradling hand. He felt at home on the moon. 

But yesterday’s exploration had taken a toll on Irwin. Not until he and Scott were back in the LM did Irwin feel the full measure of his exhaustion. Aside from the mental fatigue brought on by hours of intense concentration, and the pressure spent. The incessant glare from the sun and the bright landscape had given him a fierce headache. And he was parched; the water bag in his suit had refused to work and he’d gone more than seven hours without a drink. 

Worst of all was the pain in his fingers. By the end of the moonwalk they were so sore that when it came time to take off his gloves he had to ask Scott for help. When they had settled in for the evening, Irwin used a pair of scissors to trim his fingernails all the way back; that helped. He suggested his commander do the same, but Scott declined, reluctant to do anything that might compromise his dexterity. 

After the moonwalk Irwin had been overtired, and he had not slept well. Then, this morning he and Scott were awakened early by a call from mission control, to check on a water leak in Falcon’s cabin. When they looked behind the ascent engine cover, they found a couple of gallons of water that had leaked through a broken filter. Irwin was glad that Grumman had waterproofed the LM’s electronics. 

Thankfully, despite all of this, Irwin felt renewed as he and Scott prepared for the second traverse. Yesterday, they’d been denied the chance for real prospecting up on Hadley Delta; now they would have one more chance to find out what the mountains of the moon had to offer.

The adventure continues...

1 - Thursday morning I did a walkthrough of our extant VPC peering exercise with the re/Start crew, and my learners asked if we could do something with AWS Transit Gateway in future, so I promised to gin something up for next time.

What seemed like it would be a really quick bit of dev work ended up taking several hours because of a variety of non-obvious constraints in the lab environment.  Also, as is typical when I do this stuff, I kept going on little side quests which found their way into the architecture, tying together a bunch of different things we've explored in the last several sessions and expanding on them.  

This is my happy place, but sometimes I just run out of cognitive space when doing deep tech dives.  Regardless, got everything worked out, and I spent a good bit of this morning testing and writing out instructions whilst drinking coffee and watching the WNBA (what a shot by Sydney Taylor to win it for the Sky!).

PS - got a chuckle when CAPCOM Joe Allen told Dave, "buckle up for safety."  When I was a wee lad, I would sing that jingle with a little twist: "buckle up for Jesus, buckle up!"