Year's end is all about content recaps, right? Here are my top image and post hits from 2022.

1.Conversations

I haven't started a new playthrough of Dragon Age Origins, I just dug up an illustrative image.

'D80' is a Samsung dryer error code for exhaust issues (lint, blockage, whatever). I kinda knew this one was coming since my dryer is in the middle of the house, requiring a pretty long vent pipe. So I context switched briefly from backyard projects to install a booster fan.

I was happy to see that dryer booster fans are pressure-activated, rather than actuated by a hard wire to the dryer or something. That said, from a longevity perspective the latter might be better.

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2.Revanchist

The plan for this month to rave about Horizon: Forbidden West and Elden Ring. The Ukraine crisis was an ominous but interesting situation three weeks ago. Sadly, now people are fighting for their country and seeking refuge and having their lives destroyed by a pointless invasion.

I'll keep the theme from the previous posts, primarily just regurgitating the news and discussion that I've consumed.

Everything started with headlines saying that the 'go' order had been given without further details. I guess Reddit had been somewhat on-point with the flight tracking - the airspace cleared and Kyiv-bound flights looked for new places to land.

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3.Imminent?

Here we are on day whatever of this eastern Europe thing. It's kind of interesting though, here's what I'll talk about:

Depending on who you ask, NATO's either played this very well or very poorly.

While the US listed the 16th as the day (or beginning of the window), in my armchair I simply did not see Putin risking Xi's ire. While there are other factors that might have made it worth his while, I was confident enough to hold long positions through Friday.

But now here we are on the back side of the closing ceremonies and, by varying accounts:

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4.Diversions

I have another post queued up for real world stuff like Ukraine and the market/return of Gamestonk, but let's talk about the big March PS5 releases.

Rob came down and met me and Jes and Dani at Ponto. I was hoping to hang out and shoot some overhead waves but there was weather. So I turned the 500mm on seagulls and rainbows and drenched people.

Me and J have managed a few sessions of Elden Ring and we're quite enjoying it.

Elden Ring feels a lot like Zelda, and I mean the original Zelda with its massive overworld and frequent caves. I suppose Skyrim did that too, but oftentimes in Skyrim a small cave entrance would lead to a massive network of chambers and underground cities and such. From a playability standpoint, in Skyrim you kinda have to think twice about derailing your current plans, in TLOZ and ER you can just pop in for a boss/item/deathloop.

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5.Exeunt

My Mass Effect Legendary Edition playthrough has come to a close. Since it's wordy and spoilery, I'll put it last.

Usual fun stuff on the homefront: kickbacks, brunches, and testing the quality of sea walls.

Random? Yes. But it'll help me remember/reference it later and perhaps someone on the internets will find it helpful.

For qualifying (probably most?) employee stock purchase programs, selling date tax thresholds are as follows:

If you're looking to sell earlier than 18 months, the 12 month threshold is better than 11 months. Share price notwithstanding, it's nice to get the ESPP grants primed by not selling for 18 months, then you can sell at the grant dates and have a less painful April.

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6.Demise

This one is all about plateaus and precipices. And other things.

Global security and politics are a bit out of scope here, but I ran into some interesting stuff during nap time reading. News headlines at the moment are all about Russia potentially reprising its 2014 Crimea invasion with another attack on Ukraine.

These headlines make me think back to when zillennials were convinced that the Soleimani thing meant they would definitely be drafted for a war with Iran. Having been inundated by headlines about Saddam, the Kims, and Putin himself over the years, it feels like these things are rarely more than posturing/distraction. But from the perspective of media and dramanauts, pre-scheduled military exercises are far less exciting than "guaranteed nuclear war".

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7.Deep graphics

Jan 1's covid spike looked bad, but case rates have just kept going. As such, here's a long post that covers fractals, autoencoders, style transfer, and some vidya.

I've never done a fractals exercise before, but wanted to give it a go to see if it could be used for graphics stuff. Based on the name and pseudocode, Burning Ship looked like a fun/easy one to try. There are some pretty cool fractals algorithms that do recursive computations, but this one is just an (x, y) -> value computation. The code amounts to this:

"Zoom and center?" Yeah so the fractal plots a fixed image where you can infinitely pan and zoom to see interesting stuff. Like this:



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Related / internal