Mom, dad, and the chicks in the nest. Still driving the cats crazy.

I am reading a classic work of Jungian psychology from the mid 20th century and it is psychoanalyzing German culture re: WWII. I understand why Waltz wrote Man, the State, and War. Chapter 2 could be read as a plea for the psychoanalysts to please stay in their lane on issues of war and peace.

The comments suggest that "championship or bust" is where the Warriors are at. They have been in the "success is making it out of the first round of the playoffs" stage for quite a while. These fans need to get a grip. Happiness is seeing Steph (a top 5 player, all time) and entertaining basketball.

Metanoia for comic effect: "After considerable deliberation on the part of the captain and mate, four of the seamen were pitched upon as the most trustworthy; or rather, they were selected from the choice assortment of suspicious characters as being of an inferior order of rascality." -Melville

I can't lie, I'm a sucker for artworks representing the strengths, achievements and the positive potential of humanity, and I think we need more of them. This is a particularly good one, reportedly from a hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.

Shoutout to my uncle's father, the late John Colicos. 70's kids knew him as Kor or Count Baltar. Nice man. Oh boy, did he have some awesome stories about Hollywood in the 60's and 70's! #scifi #scifitv #startrek #bsg

I have seen this movie before. Back in the early 90s, when I worked in the Ecosystem Science and Technology Branch at ARC, our budget was cut and we survived on commercialization and technology transfer contracts. All to cut the overall budget, but keep the shuttle program alive.

China fields a military where 70-80% of soldiers are only children. Every battlefield death risks extinguishing a family line. This demographic reality shapes Xi's strategic calculus in ways Western analysis should pay more attention to. mickryan.substack.com/p/one-child-...

We have a chick in the nest atop the ladder that so excites the cats.

Question for my academic skeeps: When you have to do major surgery on a draft paper do you start a new document or do it in the same document?

I rarely make baba ganoush because of the time factor involved with first charring the eggplants. I did it on the grill while cooking other things then peeled and made the baba ganoush. It was so good. I am going to put it into regular rotation now when I am grilling.

I am always surprised to return to page for a book on Amazon after I read it. My reaction to the reviews: "What book did you read?" The reviews don't to jibe with my assessment at all.

Clementine napping next to me while I work on the sofa on #Caturday

There are few things more anxiety inducing than getting an automated message from your kids' school that it is in lockdown due to a threat. (No specifics given!) Turns out it was a prank threat of a school shooting phoned into the office.

SF Bay Area zen. Livermore valley in the distance and Mount Diablo as seen from the Morgan Territory. I did see a bobcat on the hike but wasn't fast enough with the phone to get a picture.

I am so tempted to try doing Augustine's spiritual exercises with Claude AI and see if I can make it develop spiritually and morally.

How is it that Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library has not produced a scholarly edition of Pseudo-Bonaventura's Meditations on the Life of Christ, given how important that work is in medieval and renaissance culture?

Generational tweet that might even spawn a school of architecture.

Want to know what's going on in #Mali? I made an explainer video. youtu.be/gkgpyAtRxY0

It is a lot of work writing for magazines...

I have to say, the digital detox on my phone may continue indefinitely. I put all the apps except the bare minimum in app jail using Screen Time, and I a loving the freedom from distraction. I also ditched the smart watch for analog. The electronic nagging has ceased and I couldn't be happier.

One talent I gained from taking Introduction to Film Studies at UCSB is that I can find something to appreciate in even the worst movie--lighting, costume, set decoration, cinematography, fight choreography, some craft aspect of film making, if nothing else.

I am watching the old Robert Mitchum movie Foreign Intrigue (1956). I am loving the chase scene in Vienna where they rip off the low key lighting from a similar scene in The Third Man (1949). It looks better in B&W though.

I just finished Algernon Blackwood's story "Descent into Egypt." I am blown away by the verisimilitude of the description of a mystical experience. I wonder if it because of his association with the Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn? He's done vision-inducing rituals before.

Is it at all plausible that climate change is driving California spotted owls northward in the coastal range? I would swear I heard the call of two in Las Tampas Regional Park in the oaks near a creek.

On the plus side, they have been nonstop entertainment for the cats. Birbs! They said.

I left a ladder outside and a day later this happened.

The US administration wanted regime change. They got what appears to be a military dictatorship in Iran.

Other than long-COVID that eventually went away, the big impact on me during the pandemic was that the enforced house arrest left me absolutely hating my home. The association between the house and lockdown makes me detest the house to this day.

I did a very challenging hike in Las Trampas Regional Park today. About 8.5 miles and climbed 3 1700 ft peaks. Also one difficult technical hiker only trail. I am tired and sore. Photos on the thread.⬇️

Digital detox is so liberating because of the gamification of apps. It makes you strive over trivialities in the interest of maximizing engagement.

Digital detox is the greatest thing for mental wellbeing. I ditched the smart watch except for when I run and disabled all the apps on my phone except for Phone, Photos, Camera, Maps, and text messaging. Just reserving internet access to the computer is so anxiety reducing.

OK. I am rather proud of myself. I have a working tic-tac-toe program that I wrote in Lisp. It understands strategies.

If you're wondering how the blockade is landing, this has been making its way around the naval nerds today

Is it just me or is Google Scholar indexing a massive amount of crap which gets returned on searches now?

After reading that article in @washingtonpost.com about the benefits of digital detox, I put all my apps in Screen Time jail 24/7 except for phone, messages, and basic productivity apps. We will see how the detox goes, but for 24 hours, I am not jonesing.

all these universities kept axing medieval history departments as if they thought tyrants beefing with the Pope was going to stop being relevant

Major pitching duel between Sanchez (PHI) and Ray (SFG) tonight

Sometimes you just have to watch Looney Tunes.

It’s time to post one of my favorite memes of the year.

Now that is a good one 😂

Yeah because I tried Mastodon in good faith and it was the social media experience of eating bran flakes while being glowered at by an angry German

Tangerine: iz cold morning

Violent non-state actor ecology and the effects on counterinsurgency and statebuilding @jpeaceresearch.bsky.social @dfjung.bsky.social academic.oup.com/jpr/advance-...

Guyes Imb Pet ov de Munth www.instagram.com/p/DWm2NtcFSz...

I just got a forged email purporting to be from somebody I know sent from a compromised business email account at a law firm in Canada. Too bad I don't work at Cisco anymore and could open up this attachment in a glove box to see what it does.

Whale strike by windsurfer on SF Bay! www.kron4.com/news/bay-are...

OMG! A ghostly McQueen's tail! Cc: @itsflanoy.bsky.social

A great permanent job at the University of Glasgow: Lecturer in the History of Intelligence and International Relations, post-1850

We have so many worthy, wonderful young adult cats who’ve been passed over time & time again, many have never had a single application in nearly a year of being in our rescue. If you’ve been thinking of adopting, maybe one of them is your perfect match! Elkon, MD www.petfinder.com/member/us/md...