Why people choose violence

I thought this article on Aeon was striking for its evidence-based approach to trying to answer the question of why people commit violent acts.

http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/people-do-violence-because-their-moral-codes-demand-it/

It has ramifications for our justice system and for attempts to reduce things like gang violence, and in general for understanding other cultures.

Beating a chess master with a queen sacrifice

Wow, long time no post. Here's a fun piece about how having good chess AIs available to all can change the way people train for chess. In it, the author describes how he prepared for a queen sacrifice gambit and then executed it against a much more highly rated player.

http://magazine.storycollider.org/2012/features/the-departed-queen/view-all/

A storehouse of pencil and paper games

Here's a nicely organized collection of games that one can play with only pencil and paper. Really handy to learn a couple of these for entertaining kids on the fly.

http://www.papg.com/


I also found this interesting tic-tac-toe variation, ultimate tic-tac-toe:
http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2013/06/16/ultimate-tic-tac-toe/

...which has a smaller board inside each square of a larger one. The kicker is, you must make your move on the small board corresponding to your opponents last move.

"A Kiss with Teeth" by Max Gladstone, short story about a vampire father

I only read this for the first time yesterday and I kinda think it's going on my all-time favorites list.

http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/10/a-kiss-with-teeth-max-gladstone

It's perhaps the most mature vampire story I've ever seen. But I'm sure I'm biased by the fatherhood aspect. I'm starting to realize that short stories are more situational, seasons-of-life dependent.

So maybe the stories that really grab me now say as much about me or my current situation as anything else. However, that doesn't mean they aren't great. It means that a well-done story that his the right notes for me has more impact.

I think this story hits some deep universals. But maybe if you've never been a parent, those won't hit as hard. Feel free to give your own opinion in the comments.

Tacoma art museum shows Western depictions of Native Americans and allows them to comment on them

Really interesting approach:

Tacoma Art Museum has just opened an entirely new wing devoted to a single collection of Western American art [depicting Native Americans and created by Europeans and Euro-Americans]. Because the work presented is culturally problematic, the museum has taken the unusual step of commissioning a handful of Native American people to write labels responding to the art. What results in the galleries can be frustrating, but it also breaks open the complexity of what's really going on both in the art and in the institution of the museum in 2014.

How Tacoma Art Museum Criticizes a Collection Without Angering the Donors

Best way to help the poor? Give them money, directly, in small amounts

Experiments show they do not waste it and make better decisions than aid agencies; the result is improved lives and people off the public dole, with vastly less administrative costs.

https://decorrespondent.nl/541/Why-we-should-give-free-money-to-everyone/20798745-cb9fbb39

Grief and old computing platforms, or why Paul Ford is a genius

This article on medium.com by Paul Ford mixes the grief of losing a friend with nostalgia for old computing platforms. The way Ford weaves everything together is, to me, the mark of why he's a fantastic writer. I've been reading his stuff for years and years. I can't even express the feelings his writing evokes.

https://medium.com/message/networks-without-networks-7644933a3100

"Black Box" by Jennifer Egan, short story on the New Yorker web site

I went to read this because I recognized Jennifer Egan's name. The associations in my head for her name were 'award-winning, literary, sci fi'. The story is interesting but I don't feel that I fully understand it.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/06/04/black-box-2#

When I checked my journal database I found that I'd read her book _The Keep_ in 2011 and been impressed. Similar to this story, though, I was more impressed while reading it than at the end, where there were some things that seemed unfinished.

Halloween 2014: My Owlman Costume

This is me as the Owlman of Morrison's Earth 2 comic.

  
I guess I'm doing kind of an Owlman Returns? I look a little paunchy to me. Like Owlman had hung up the feathers for a few years, but then somebody got him drunk and convinced him to put on the costume ONE MORE TIME:

Still, I was really happy with the stylized-feather-cape thing. Side note: I've definitely proven that such a cape would be completely impractical for any kind of acrobatics.