Unsolicited Advice

I recently cadged a Google Daydream VR rig off of someone on Freecycle. The Daydream is a mass-manufactured headset that Google produced for people who thought that building their own out of cardboard was too ratchet for words. It doesn't really fit me in the same way that swim goggles never really fit me, but I stuck some safety pins in the head strap and you're not meant to move around too much while using it anyway, so it more or less works. The Daydream can be best described as the world's okayest implementation of VR. It's main selling point is its rock-bottom cost, which was achieved by using your extant smartphone for both the display and the head tracking, the two most expensive modules in fancier rigs by Oculus or Vive. It's not a bad idea. We all carry around tiny high-resolution pocket supercomputers that can track our position well enough to catch imaginary Pokémon in the middle of a Wal-Mart parking lot, why not use it for this? The picture is not as po...

It is the weekend before Halloween, and a lot of people who don't normally wear makeup will be slathering on a lot of it. While I'm sure you've all put a lot of effort into planning how you get the stuff on, most of you have only a very vague idea how to get it off again. Let me help. In general, the easiest way to get makeup off is the same way you got it on. All makeup is, is pigment in a skin-safe solvent. If you know how you stuck the stuff onto your face, you know how to get it back off. Powders like loose pigment (Maybelline Color Tattoo pots, loose powder) or pressed cakes (most dry eyeshadows, compacts of setting powder/bronzer/highlighter) stick to your skin because of the natural lipids on the surface. You get them off the same way you get the natural oil off your face, ideally a gentle soap or face wash, and a lot of water. Thin liquids like liquid foundations are generally based on distilled water. If it smears a lot when you sweat, this is your culprit. Soap/...

I've discovered some very interesting things about Indian tailoring. Why am I tinkering with Indian tailoring? Well, because I ordered a bunch of Indian kurtas, and they all needed to be let out at the bust.  Why did I order a bunch of Indian kurtas? Because that's what you wear when you take kathak, one of the seven(-ish) forms of classical Indian dance.  Why am I in a classical Indian dance class? Honestly, at this point, your guess is as good as mine. My old flamenco teacher is semi-retired and I don't see her too often anymore, but she held an open class at a little local dance festival a couple of months ago, so I dropped in to visit. The next class over was one of the Indian things with the ankle bells, which turned out to be kathak . You all know me and shiny, noisy objects, so I stayed for that. The teacher is apparently just getting settled in here in Boston, so I gave her a list of places I knew of that rented out studios and sent her a few links for local arts gr...

I have found out why the MSPCA was told these guys were bitey. It's mostly Yogi, and he's not biting. He's investigating . Rats use their mouths when they play, just like puppies. When they bite out of fear or anger, it's a very quick strike, very bloody, and you don't get your finger back in a hurry. When they bite during play, they don't chomp very hard -- just hard enough that the other rat feels it and knows he's gettin' got.  Yogi has been systematically testing my hand to see how hard he can toof me while he plays. I offer him my hand, he looks at me a second, then he slowly and deliberately puts his teeth on my knuckle and bites down a little bit. I go 'eep!' and jerk my hand away, then slowly give it back. And the next time he tries it, he's a little bit more gentle.  This is totally normal for a rat, but doesn't usually go over well with little kids. They feel teeth and think they've been bitten for real, then start shrieking...

Yogi, left, is a black self dumbo, and Koda, right, is a black Berkshire top-ear. They're about seven months old. These two came already named from the MSPCA. Usually rats in a group together get theme names, because humans like patterns; Google says these two are named after some beagles on Instagram . That's boring, so I combed through the WWWJDIC for some ateji/jinmeiyou kanji that I liked. I've decided the names are actually spelled 容疑 (yōgi, "looks suspicious") and 幸多 (kōda, "many blessings").  I have matched the correct name to the correct rat, trust me. Yogi is the fourth dumbo rat I've had who believes he is in charge of the entire universe. He is also the fourth dumbo rat I've had, period. I am starting to think it's genetic. Something about the shape of that flat little skull just doesn't leave any room for humility. The volunteer at Nevins said they were surrendered because they were "nippy", but further investigatio...

I've found a new podcast to binge. It's called "Computer Game Evolution", written, edited, produced and distributed as a one-man show by someone who's opted to go by "Tim". It's a very witty, very thorough exploration of how video games got to be what they are, starting in the pre-history of computers when all your tedious calculations were done by hand, and sometimes by post. His intro trailer mentions that he defended a doctoral thesis having something to do with video games, so my guess is that this is the director's cut audiobook of his dissertation, now with 400% of the snark his advisor made him edit out. Tim declines to say where he's from. His accent is distinctly East Slavic, although I admit I don't know enough about the languages in that family to distinguish between them from just their traces in his English. He also mentions that as much as he'd love to take donations for the podcast, he can't, as they don't work ...

I am saddened to report that Casper left us to rejoin his brother late on Wednesday night. It was very quick. One moment he was fine; the next, there was a sudden flurry of noise from his cage, as his legs failed him and he fell off a shelf. I sleep through normal rat sounds, but this was unusual. I bolted awake and went to see what was wrong. Cas was never a lap rat. I wasn't even allowed to pet him, when he first came home. Mickie wanted to live in the armpit of my shirt forever, but Casper permitted me only to politely boople his snoot through the cage bars. Actually picking him up was reserved only for dire emergencies, like the fire alarm. This was a touch awkward when it came to play time, since I needed a way to get them from the cage onto the bed where their rat-safe blanket and boxes were set out. But if he didn't want to be picked up, he didn't want to be picked up, and I wasn't going to argue with him too much. Instead I just offered them use of the box they ...

The last load of Amazon boxes contained a microphone. It is a Shure SM48 handheld vocal mic, with dynamic cardioid pickup. This is a piece of professional audio equipment. Not a pricey one -- they're about $40 -- but not the sort of thing you'd buy for fucking around with your friends on Discord. It hooks up with balanced stereo cables, and you have to run it through an amp to do anything with the signal, or an audio interface box if you want to get the sound into a computer. It is well-fortified and feels like it was carved out of a chunk of solid metal. It would probably survive being used to drive framing nails. Or being handed to your drummer. Same thing. It came with a stand adapter, a zippered case, and a warranty card. It did not come with any instructions. They figure if you've got one of these you probably already know how it works. It was on my Amazon list because these things are really good for general environmental sound. I've used them at work to mic every...

I've been wearing contact lenses a long time. I was first issued daily-wear disposables when I was fourteen. After being late to school every goddamn day for two weeks, my mother marched me back to the optometrist and got me extended-wear disposables -- the kind you could sleep in -- instead. A lot of people don't tolerate these well, but I do, and I've been wearing them ever since. Fitting these lenses is not the exact science they would like you to believe. Getting eyeglass prescriptions in general is not. They stick you in front of a rig with switchable lenses and ask you which one you like  better, ffs. You go to the eye doctor to make sure your eyeballs aren't going to fall out, not for custom tailored prosthetics. Neither glasses nor contacts are ever 100% custom-fitted to your needs, at least outside of very specific circumstances. Glasses are ground to "close enough" specs from the settings available on the machine, and lenses come in fixed size/power ...