Marune: Alastor 933: Good
In the afternoon I finished Marune: Alastor 933, Alastor book 2 of 3 by Jack Vance. I liked the rereading of this story. It was a quick but good read.
I Bought Three Books by Jack Vance
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.
The Blue World
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.
Feeding a Socotra Island Blue Baboon tarantula
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.
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.
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.
For more information on this species, check out the Monocentropus balfouri care sheet by Tarantula Collective.
Wyst: Alastor 1716: Very Good
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.
Marune: Alastor 933
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.
Mounting a Brassavola nodosa orchid
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.
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!
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.
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.
tumblelog Got Listed
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 her blog I found out I
got listed in her 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).
Wow!
Her earlier post, So I've Been Thinking About Static Site
Generators,
got mentioned on Lobsters two months ago. And tumblelog got mentioned in a comment.
A New Orchid for My Small Collection
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
How to obtain a list of installed Mac ports II
Yesterday I showed how to obtain a list of Mac ports installed and
that are active. Today I learned that there is an easier way, without
using grep:
port installed requested \
and active
Both requested and active are pseudo-portnames, see port help
for more information.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
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.
How to obtain a list of installed Mac ports
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.
Apex (2026)
When an adrenaline junkie sets out to conquer a menacing river, she discovers that nature isn't the only thing out for blood.
In the evening Esme and I watched Apex. I liked the movie, really great nature shots, and rate it a 7 out of 10.
Trullion: Alastor 2262: Very Good
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.
A New Spider Arrived
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.
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.
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.
Wyst: Alastor 1716
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: Alastor 2262
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.
City of Miracles: Very Good
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.
Dumplin' (2018)
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.
In the Shadow of the Moon (2019)
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.
Roommates (2026)
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.
Gangster Squad (2013)
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.
Striking Distance (1993)
Coming from a police family, Tom Hardy ends up fighting his uncle after the murder of his father. Tom believes the killer is another cop and goes on the record with his allegations. Demoted then to river duty, the killer taunts Tom.
In the evening Esme and I watched Striking Distance. The movie was OK and I rate it a 6 out of 10.
City of Miracles
Sigrud je Harkvaldsson doesn’t waste his time contemplating vanquished gods or divine mysteries. He understands one code—loyalty—and speaks one language. Revenge.
So when he learns that his oldest friend and ally, former Prime Minister Shara Komayd, has been assassinated, he knows exactly what to do—and that no mortal force can stop him from meting out the suffering Shara’s killers deserve.
Yet as Sigrud pursues his quarry with his customary terrifying efficiency, he begins to fear that this battle is an unwinnable one. Because discovering the truth behind Shara’s death will require him to take up arms in a secret, decades-long war, face down an angry young god, and unravel the last mysteries of Bulikov, the city of miracles itself. And—perhaps most daunting of all—finally face the truth about his own cursed existence.
In the afternoon I started in City of Miracles, The Divine Cities Book 3 by Robert Jackson Bennett.