In the afternoon I wrote a reply to a Usenet post in both
comp.os.linux.advocacy and comp.sys.mac.advocacy. In the post I
replied to the author stated that there is an impressive choice of
terminal applications for Linux, implying that this is not the case
for macOS. I replied that I knew of at least 10 terminal applications
for macOS. Soon after, I replied to my own post with the following
list (reformatted to link directly):
Also the author complained about lack of customization features to
make the command-line environment aesthetically pleasing on macOS. To
which I replied that one could install
starship and a neat font like Firacode Nerd
Font Mono.
Alacritty with starship prompt and Firacode Nerd Font Mono.
Personally, I use Alacritty. In the past I have tried kitty but I like
the simplicity of Alacritty more.
Early in the evening I finished The Blue
World by Jack
Vance. Even though I have read this book several times before I still
enjoyed the story once more. Recommended.
Halma is a planet forever shrouded by the mystical epic of
Emphyrio. Governed by an antiquated feudal system, all but the
powerful Lords are involved in the planet's arts and crafts
handiwork, which is exported and highly regarded throughout the
galaxy. Work on machines is punishable by death, and profits are
small. From his father Amiante, Ghyl Tarvoke learns that the
inequalities of life on Halma can be remedied, and that the answer
lies in legend. When Amiante dies a cruel and unjustifiable death,
Ghyl begins his quest - to know the true story of Emphyrio.
In the early evening I started in
Emphyrio by Jack
Vance. I had downloaded the edition with cover art by Joe Bergeron.
In the afternoon I decided I wanted to read "The Blue World" by Jack
Vance. I did own the Dutch translation of The Blue
World
as part of an omnibus,
but not an English edition, which I prefer. So I went to the official
Jack Vance ebook shop and
selected The Blue
World. Additionally, I
also added Emphyrio
and The Domains of
Koryphon (also known
as "The Grey Prince") to my basket. Of the latter I also had a Dutch
edition, part of the same omnibus. Each ebook costs 5.99 USD so the
total was 17.97 USD which I paid for using PayPal.
King Kragen has ruled a sea-covered world since human colonists
arrived twelve generations before. A monstrous water creature with
gluttonous appetites, King Kragen demands a payoff in return for
protection- and to appease him has become a way of life. To anger
King Kragen means certain death, but Sklar Hast is fed up with
slavery and sacrifice. In a world without weapons, the fight won't
be easy- particularly when the unwilling treat Sklar Hast as the
enemy!
In the afternoon I started in The Blue
World by Jack
Vance. I had downloaded the edition with cover art by Marcel
Laverdet. This is one of my favorite books by Jack Vance. I read the
book, in a Dutch translation, for the very first time back
in 1981. Back then "Vienna" by Ultravox was played on the radio and I
recall that the haunting song went well with the water world described
in the book.
As we lived near a canal I even tried to make my own, fresh water,
sponge arbor with some success. I made a cube out of green plant
stakes and divided the cube into smaller sections. I lowered the
construction into the canal with a rope and checked it often. After
quite some time some growths could be discerned.
Early in the evening I noticed that the juvenile female Monocentropus
balfouri, which arrived last
week,
was out of hiding. So I decided to attempt to feed her.
Juvenile female Monocentropus balfouri resting on top of her burrow.
The common name of this spider is Socotra Island Blue Baboon
tarantula. In the above photo the blue legs are not really
visible. Maybe because the spider is going to molt soon, maybe because
she is still young.
Monocentropus balfouri threat display.
When I dropped a pre-killed morio worm, a larva of Zophobas
atratus (darkling beetle), the tarantula showed a threat display: it
quickly reared up on her hind legs, exposed her fangs, and spread her
front legs wide open. I pre-kill morio worms by crushing their heads
with tweezers to prevent them from burrowing into the substrate and
ending up as large black beetles.
In both photos webbing can be clearly seen. In my experience this
species is a prolific webber and will create a very dense silk mat.
Later in the evening, when I checked on the tarantula, she had still
not eaten the larva and was resting in a corner. I'll check again
tomorrow and will remove the larva the day after if its still left
over.
In the late morning I finished Wyst: Alastor
1716, Alastor book 3
of 3 by Jack Vance. I liked the rereading of this story more than I
expected, especially the second half. In short: very good.
From his fabulous palace on Numenes, the Connatic rules the
sprawling Alastor Cluster, and tracks the doings of each of his
trillion or more subjects. But there is one man he knows nothing
about; the past life of the wanderer called Pardero is a complete
mystery. Pardero himself has two goals: first, to find out who he
is, then to find his enemy- the person who stole his memory. He
discovers that his home is the mysterious Marune , a planet lit by
four shifting suns, and Pardero makes his way there- to be hailed as
the Kaiark Efraim, ruler of the shadowed realm. Uncovering his lost
identity had been comparatively simple, but finding his sworn enemy
would be more difficult...
In the afternoon I started in Marune: Alastor
933, Alastor book 2 of
3 by Jack Vance. I downloaded the version with cover art by Konstantin
Korobov. Based on the shop
description I had read book 3 before book 2, publication date
wise. But because the books are stand-alone, this is not a big issue.
Many years ago I named one of my Silicon Graphics Indy
workstations,
which I had bought second hand, after the planet in this story:
Marune.
Last Friday I had ordered some dried sphagnum moss. I wanted to mount
a Brassavola nodosa, originally a present for my
mother,
on a piece of cork. I was expecting the moss to arrive last Saturday, so that
day I removed the orchid from its pot, removed the dead roots, moss, bark, and
cleaned the healthy roots carefully.
Dead orchid roots, moss, and bark. Photo taken last Saturday.
Next, I carved a small piece out of a cork tube to make space for the
orchid. By mounting it on a cork tube and giving it more light I hope
to finally get flowers. It hasn't done so in nearly seven years!
Brassavola nodosa resting on a cork tube. Photo taken last Saturday.
And today the sphagnum moss arrived. It was dried and compressed in a
flat package. I let it soak for a while in warm water.
Close-up of the mounted Brassavola nodosa.
I used 3 pieces of plant twist tie to hold the orchid in place with
the sphagnum moss underneath its roots. Hopefully, with better care,
the orchid is going to flower soon. In my experience, a different
plant and in Mexico, the flowers of the Brassavola nodosa smell very
nice in the evening, hence the common name "Lady of the Night" for
this orchid species.
In the early afternoon I checked the traffic page of the Github repository of
tumblelog. I noticed
listed under referring sites the site
wolfgirl.dev. Checking the blog I found out I
got listed in PolyWolf's Other Static Site
Generators
post:
tumblelog by
John: Both Python & Perl versions of the
same program, kept in feature parity?? They say it hasn't been done
before now. Interesting concept to use Markdown files as the basis
for templating instead of HTML; I guess makes sense given
technically it's a subset, and given the intended use of the program
(microblogging).
In the afternoon Esme and I went to De
Carlton, a garden centre which is just a
short bike ride from our house. Esme wanted some plants for our garden
and I wanted to have a look at the orchids, first.
Close-up of a Cambria orchid flower.
Soon, I noticed a section with "Cambria" orchids. From what I
understand those are technically × Alicerara the hybrid name for
intergeneric hybrids between three orchid genera: Brassia ×
Miltonia × Oncidium. Commercially, × Cambria is used.
Close-up of Cambria orchid flowers.
I selected a large specimen with two flower stalks, one of which had
still closed flower buds. Later, I went back to take some photos of
the flowers of other Cambria orchids on display.
Close-up of a Cambria orchid flower.
After Esme and I had selected some more plants for our garden we paid
and left on our bikes. Back home, I first took a close-up photo of the
orchid I had bought.
Close-up of a Cambria orchid flower.
Next. I took a photo of the whole plant in its dark flowerpot, which
we also bought in the same garden centre. The orchid will share a
small table, together with two small Phalaenopsis sp. orchids.
Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a
grandfather. On the way they stumble across what appears to be a
deserted house, only to discover something sinister
within. Something armed with a chainsaw.
In the evening Jaiden, Esme, and I watched The Texas Chain Saw
Massacre. Jaiden had requested
this movie and liked it a lot. I liked the movie not that much but
rate it a 6 out of 10.
If you want to obtain a list of Mac ports you installed (requested)
and that are active use the following command:
port installed requested |
grep -F '(active)'
requested is a pseudo-portname limiting the list to installed ports
that were explicitly asked for. The grep command limits this list
further to the ports that are active only. It checks for the exact
string (active) using -F. By adding -c to grep one gets a
count of the requested and active ports.
In the late morning I finished Trullion: Alastor
2262, Alastor book 1
of 3 by Jack Vance. Despite having read this story several times
before the story still felt fresh. In short: it was very good.
Last week, Tuesday the 14th of April I ordered a
Monocentropus balfouri female with a body length of 3-3,5cm with
Exotic-Spiders. I had ordered three
tarantula
slings
nearly 6 years ago with Dawid Staroń, the owner, before.
I ordered the Monocentropus balfouri female to replace a (larger)
female
that passed away a few months ago, without an obvious reason, after nearly
3 years in my care.
Last Tuesday, the 21st, I got in the morning an email
confirming my order. I was already anxious the past few days because I
hadn't received any confirmation email from the website's shopping
system nor a reply to an email I sent to Dawid last Friday. But my
worries were for nothing: the confirmation email was in the afternoon
followed by an email from UPS that the package was on its way.
And today, just around noon the package was delivered. Inside a
cardboard box filled with polystyrene chips was a smaller package
wrapped in a polystyrene sheet. This package, a small styrofoam
thermobox, contained the live spider.
Styrofoam thermobox containing a female Monocentropus balfouri.
Heeding the warning on the thermobox to be careful I put the box
inside the terrarium: a large plastic container with a layer of
coconut coir and some decoration, like plastic plants, and a piece of
cork. The plastic plants will be webbed over soon; in my experience
this species is a heavy webber. Next, I carefully removed the lid of
the box and used large tweezers to remove the moist toilet paper
covering the tarantula.
The spider rested on another piece of moist toilet paper which I
lifted and placed next to the box. After this, I removed the box and
gently moved the spider off the paper using a paintbrush.
Monocentropus balfouri female resting on moist toilet paper.
Moving it to its terrarium went without any issue. This spider is an
old world tarantula and its bite can be very painful I've read. Also,
in my experience, this species can be very skittish. When I moved the
container later on it ran quite fast around the container. In short,
not a species recommended for a beginner in general.
The spider looks certainly larger than a body length of 3.5cm. I think
it's closer to 5cm (roughly 2"). I will wait a few days until its
settled with feeding this beautiful tarantula.
The Alastor Cluster is made up of three thousand inhabited planets
whose sole protector of law is the mysterious Connatic. On Wyst,
world 1716 of the Cluster, can be found a Utopia - or so it seems;
in one great city live millions of people, sharing alike, working in
absolute equality for just a few hours a week. But there is
something decidedly strange about it all...
In the afternoon I started in Wyst: Alastor
1716, Alastor book 3
of 3 by Jack Vance. I downloaded the version with a great cover by
Konstantin Korobov. I had read this book several times already and
look forward to a reread.
Back in the late 90's I bought a second hand Silicon Graphics Indigo
R3000. And because I like to name my computers after planets in Jack
Vance's universe I named it Wyst because the tower workstation could
resemble a big apartment block on the planet Wyst.
Edit: I just noted that Marune is actually book 2, not Wyst, according to the
years of publication given in the Wikipedia Alastor
trilogy article. This
contradicts information on the official Jack Vance website.
Trullion - world 2262 of the Alastor Cluster - is a water-world of
fens, mists, and idyllic islands set in clear oceans whose teeming
richness provides food for the taking. The Trill are a carefree and
easy-living people, but violence enters their lives during raids of
the Starmenters, freebooting galactic pirates who live short,
perilous lives in pursuit of adventure, rape and pillage. Then
there's the planet-wide game of hussade - when the Trill's passion
for gambling drives them to risk all - even life itself, on the
hazardous water-chessboard gaming fields. Their prize? The beautiful
sheirlmaiden...
In the evening I started in Trullion: Alastor
2262, Alastor book 1
of 3 by Jack Vance. I downloaded the version with a neat cover by
Konstantin Korobov.
I had read this book several times before. It's
one of my favourite Jack Vance books, especially since I grew up near
a canal and even had my own small rowboat. Later, when I owned my
first (second hand) Silicon Graphics Indy R5000 I named the workstation
Trullion because of its teal blue "water" color.
In the late afternoon I finished City of
Miracles,
The Divine Cities Book 3 by Robert Jackson Bennett. I liked this book
a lot, especially the fight scene about halfway. Of the three books I
consider this one the best.
Willowdean ("Dumplin'"), the plus-size teenage daughter of a former
beauty queen, signs up for her mom's Miss Teen Bluebonnet pageant as
a protest that escalates when other contestants follow her
footsteps, revolutionizing the pageant and their small Texas town.
In the evening Esme and I watched
Dumplin'. The movie was OK
and I rate it a 6 out of 10.
A Philadelphia police officer struggles with a lifelong obsession to
track down a mysterious serial killer whose crimes defy explanation.
In the evening Esme and I watched In the Shadow of the
Moon. I was sure I had seen
the movie before. Later on, Esme agreed. She fell asleep halfway. I
liked the rewatch and rate the movie a 7 out of 10.
When a hopeful, naive college freshman, Devon, asks the cool and
confident Celeste to be her roommate, a blossoming friendship
spirals into a war of passive aggression.
In the evening Esme and I watched
Roommates. The movie was OK
and I rate it a 6 out of 10.
It's 1949 Los Angeles, the city is run by gangsters and a malicious
mobster, Mickey Cohen. Determined to end the corruption, John O'Mara
assembles a team of cops, ready to take down the ruthless leader and
restore peace to the city.
In the evening Esme and I watched Gangster
Squad. I had the feeling we
had seen the movie before. I liked the movie and rate it a 7 out of 10.
