newmethos

@newmethos

Freelance projection designer, climber, and hiker. Mixology is a habit and a hobby. Movies when I have time for them.

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newmethos@newmethos· Jun 26

Wait, WHAT?! Ian Fleming lived at a place called Goldeneye?!

A portion of text from Small Wars, Faraway Places, describing the movements of British Prime Minister Anthony Eden toward the end of the Suez crisis. The highlighted portion reads: “Eden and his wife left for Jamaica on 21 November for a period of medically decreed rest at Goldeneye” which is where my brain stopped. The text continues “the home of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond thrillers.”

newmethos@newmethos· Jun 23

A king surveying his kingdom

newmethos@newmethos· Jun 23

My view for watching the match:

The shadow of a life guard station is keeping the California sun off of me as I catch the only signal I can near the campsite: Leo Carillo State Beach just outside of Malibu. Tide’s coming in. Sky as blur as can be and not even the hint of a cloud.

newmethos@newmethos· Jun 12

I don't know Bsky didn't pull a pic of that toilet for the preview, but this is what that toilet looks like (and costs):

The squat trash compactor shape of the Kohler Smart Toilet, dubbed the Numi 2.0. This black version costs just $16,250 for a UV wand, a cleaner for the wand, and most importantly, voice control, among other features not listed in the picture but available at the link in my previous skeet.

newmethos@newmethos· Jun 8

After 9 weeks of pinky rehab, it’s time to get back on the wall, get deep in some cracks, and start breaking in the new climbing shoes

newmethos@newmethos· Apr 27

This is the piece from the Hollywood Reporter about that quote:

Text from an article in the Hollywood Reporter about remarks Trump made about his Secret Service detail’s response to a possible shooter: “‘They drew those guns so fast, they looked like Matt Dillon’ the president said of the moment Secret Service agents apprehended the suspect who attempted to sprint past them. The president's remark sparked some confusion online with some users on X wondering why Trump called out actor Matt Dillon as other users insisted he was referring to Gunsmoke character U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon, played by James Arness”

newmethos@newmethos· Apr 20

That green county in the corner? That’s Imperial County. The. Fucking. Desert.

A map of California categories, the top 5 producers of alfalfa hay are in green. 4 of them are in the Central Valley. The fifth, all the way down on the border with Mexico and over by Arizona. It os mostly desert.

newmethos@newmethos· Apr 15

I know that review websites are riddled with AI slop. I don't know that this website has done that exactly, but it's clearly not a trustworthy reviewer of climbing shoes.

newmethos@newmethos· Apr 4

Sorry, ICEs, I am electrician by trade, so I think about IEC cables a lot upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

The variety of IEC connections, polarized, unground, and grounded that make up the power connection between the transformer of an electrical device and the cable you plug into the wall. Dead center is the most traditional formal, the rounded trapezoid.

newmethos@newmethos· Mar 26

A lot of folks out here thinking learning cursive allows you to easily read older hand-drafted documents and that’s not even true of printed documents, slow your roll. brightspotcdn.byu.edu/dims4/defaul...

From BYU’s tutorial of Frakturschrift, a printed example of the latin alphabet in a serif font next to how the Fraktur appears when printed in three columns: print lower case, Fraktur lower case, and Fraktur upper case.

newmethos@newmethos· Mar 12

I'm not going quote post this because the user doesn't need the interaction, but I just have to point out that they are clinging to a magical belief about LLM efficacy and not at all highlighting a use case that LLMs are actually good at.

A picture of a post in a thread with Emily Bender (didn't want to quote post the user who I am about to harshly deride). The text reads: "Thank you! I really want to hear Emily Bender say 'The LLM technology is a remarkable achievement with all kinds of impressive use cases like translation [even though I disagree with how it's done].' That's it. No gotcha of any kind. Just literally concede a tiny point without any smug."

newmethos@newmethos· Mar 11

His stat line is nuts. He took 43 free throws?!

Bam Adebayo’s stat line for his record breaking game: 42 minutes, 83 points, 20 of 43 made field goals, 7 of 22 made threes, 36 of 43 made free throws.

newmethos@newmethos· Feb 15

So this looks interesting, promising even, right? Except the corpus of results is so small, that it's actually conflating 2 things that do exist, but not with each other. The Karma Physical Lens VOP is a thing and so is diffraction spikes from iris blades

$An image of the AI summary of my obscure search for information about diffraction in Houdini's Karma renderer: Karma Physical Lens VOP node, which simulates optical artifacts caused by light bending around iris diaphragms. These spikes, which appear as thin lines extending from bright light sources, are controlled by adjusting the iris shape (e.g., number of blades) on the lens shader, typically added within a material network attached to a camera in a LOP (/stage) network. Key Techniques for Creating Diffraction Spikes in Karma • Use the Karma Physical Lens VOP: Set up a material network, create a Karma Physical Lens node, and connect it to your camera's lens shader settings in the Karma render node or camera object. • Configure Iris Settings: The number of blades in the iris diaphragm determines the number of spikes. • An even number of blades produces fewer, more intense spikes (e.g., 6-bladed iris creates 6 spikes). • An odd number of blades can create a higher number of, often more diffuse, spikes. • Adjust Lens Effects: The physical lens node allows you to control the intensity, aperture shape, and color of the diffraction, which simulates how light bends around obstructions (like aperture blades or, metaphorically, dirt/scratches on a lens). • Post-Processing/Alternative Method: While Karma's physical lens handles it natively, another approach for adding spikes is to use software like AstroAF on rendered images, which allows for post-process control over spike length, thickness, and intensity based on pixel brightness. These techniques allow for the creation of stylized "starburst" effects on bright, point-light sources within your 3D scenes.$

newmethos@newmethos· Feb 15

The brightest star in this awesome image from the Webb telescope has a classic photographic artifact that I want to re-create - the starburst, which is caused by diffraction spikes, where light bends around a mechanical obstruction, frequently the overlapping blades of an iris.

$A vivid color image of the Helix nebula taken by the Webb Telescope. In addition to the vivid orange of the gases, there are several very bright stars with an interesting effect called a diffraction spike, where something thin has obstructed the light and it has bent around it. This gives the starburst look that I am hoping to create in Houdini for an opera design.$

newmethos@newmethos· Feb 10

Hoo, boy after a fair piece hitting that V4 plateau, I’ve been steadily working the V4/V5s at MW Climbing and today, I got this crimpy V6/V7, which felt great!

A close up of a climbing wall that shows off the tiny edges of the orange start hold of a V6/V7 climb. The hold is marked with 8 distinct finger pad shaped chalk marks, where I had carefully placed my hands to begin the send go.

newmethos@newmethos· Feb 1

Despite it being nearly 50° F in Lincoln, I discovered a real deal Asian market, so it’s gamjatang time (a Korean potato pork soup). And sticky rice with sweet soy sauce as a treat.

A photo of two pots on a stove top. On the left is a very old Griswold cast iron Dutch oven from the 40s full of gamjatang, a Korean potato and pork soup. There is sushi rice with a wooden spoon in the pot on the right.

newmethos@newmethos· Jan 26

Found some hilarious old things at my parents house. The Marathon Infinity disk is from the original run of the game in 1996.

4 cds in a CD case, from top left, clockwise: Marathon Infinity, original disk, Ghost Recon, Max Payne, and Civ 3 disks, all burned (and presumably a bit stolen).

A burned CD with a copy of Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 and the product key (likely ill-gotten). SP2 was released in the summer of 2001.

Minimum system requirements for some CD burning software from a company that no longer exists, circa 2001: Intel Pentium II 300 (300 Mhz) or an AMD Athlon 500. 32 megabytes of RAM, and a choice collection of old graphics cards including the Rage 128, the VooDoo3, the Riva TNT, the Geforce 256, among others.

newmethos@newmethos· Jan 23

Yeah, that's cold. It's not Minnesota cold. But still.

A clipped screenshot of the Accuweather summary for Lincoln, NE around sunrise on Jan 23, 2026. It reads negative five degrees Fahrenheit with a RealFeel of negative seventeen degrees.

newmethos@newmethos· Jan 15

The vibes in Lincoln, NE right now.

A light pole in a parking lot. It is white and sports a black sticker that reads: ABOLISH ICE

newmethos@newmethos· Jan 3

Here is said banner, happy Saturday

A banner under the score bug on Jan 3’s match between Bournemouth and Arsenal, being broadcast on NBC indicating where to get your news about the war the US just started with Venezuela. Sports is not a refuge from the relentless news cycle that is sure to be 2026

newmethos@newmethos· Dec 28

I’m Team Hydration all day long, but, uh, I’m not having this one, no way

newmethos@newmethos· Dec 13

The TJ at La Brea and 3rd in LA has a fully fenced in overflow lot only accessible by the same alley the trucks use. Soooo many people clog the thing trying to turn left onto La Brea.

A satellite photo of a Trader Joe’s parking lot at La Brea and 3rd in Los Angeles. La Brea is on the right (east), 3rd is below (south). The gated overflow lot is on the left, accessible only through the main lot or the single vehicle alley off of 3rd.

newmethos@newmethos· Dec 6

Thankfully, Duck Duck Go makes turning this shit off pretty easily, but this is worse than a useless answer, it's actively wrong about all of the nodes involved.

A Duck Duck Go AI Search Assist result for a technical question in Houdini that is wrong in almost every respect.

newmethos@newmethos· Dec 5

The auto capture of the alt-text went sideways, I’ll fix it when I’m not my phone. Anyway, here’s pic of the draw:

A screenshot of the recently announced draw of the 2026 World Cup. I will add better alt text with a list of the groups when I get to my hotel. Sorry.

newmethos@newmethos· Nov 24

Your business strategy really really really should not read like an excerpt from Enron's Wikipedia page

A portion of the Wikipedia entry on Enron, especially the part that got them into so much trouble: "Enron used a variety of deceptive and fraudulent tactics and accounting practices to cover its fraud in reporting Enron's financial information. Special-purpose entities were created to mask significant liabilities from Enron's financial statements. These entities made Enron seem more profitable than it was, and created a dangerous spiral in which, each quarter, corporate officers would have to perform more and more financial deception to create the illusion of billions of dollars in profit while the company was actually losing money.[53] This practice increased their stock price to new levels, at which point the executives began to work on insider information and trade millions of dollars' worth of Enron stock. The executives and insiders at Enron knew about the offshore accounts that were hiding losses for the company; the investors, however, did not. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow directed the team that created the off-books companies and manipulated the deals to provide himself, his family, and his friends with hundreds of millions of dollars in guaranteed revenue, at the expense of the corporation for which he worked and its stockholders." The sentence about Special-purpose entities masking significant liabilities in Enron's financial statements is highlighted.

newmethos@newmethos· Nov 13

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not the target demo of the Notebook: The Musical but also, this is an awful image to put on a giant banner advertising your show, right?! Like, her head is surreally out of proportion!

A banner advertising a coming performance of The Notebook: The Musical that echoes one of the famous shots from the movie. But the people are outlines revealing splattered pastel colors against a field of light blue.

The image on a banner advertising the Notebook: The Musical zoomed in on the heads of the outlines of the people re-creating arguably the most famous image of the film, she has jumped into his arms and he is holding her above his head. The outlines reveal spattered pastel colors against a light blue field. The women’s head is enormous compared to the man.

newmethos@newmethos· Oct 9

I saw the most vivid rainbow ever today outside of Joshua Tree. I was driving, so I couldn’t take a picutre, but I could so CLEARLY see the difference between indigo and violet that it was actually startling. Here’s pic of the rain system racing in:

Gray thunder clouds loom above the northern range of mountains in Joshua Tree National Park. The foreground is flat dirt of the trampled BLM dispersed camping nearby. The clouds mostly block the sun, but there is a strip of mountains that are starkly lit beneath that cloudy sky.

newmethos@newmethos· Oct 7

Yahoo! Has been doing automated fantasy football recaps since before LLMs existed and, uh, “AI” has not improved them. My fantasy team’s name is not “A Fantasy Team.” It goes downhill from there.

A headline from an AI generated fantasy football recap, itself a ridiculous exercise, that reads “A Fantasy Team turns M R Hall into M R Hall 0.” My fantasy team name is not “A Fantasy Team.” It did get my opponent’s team name correctly though. It goes downhill from there

newmethos@newmethos· Oct 7

Uh, well, that’s why the emergency flashlight doesn’t work

2 D Cell Duracell batteries on a cutting board with 2 very different expiration dates (and eventually measured voltages). The top is March of 2029. The bottom March of 2009

newmethos@newmethos· Oct 3

Um, I have questions. My system language is German, also auf Deutsch, Bluesky auch, aber doch diese Frage kommt immerhin. Aber wieso?!