If you save old calendars, those from 2017, 2006, 1995, 1989 and 1978 all will work for 2023. Calendars from 2000 will also work from March on.
Category: Whatever
Today’s quote
I’ve been around some very saintly men in my life, and though I should’ve felt disgusting and unworthy in their presence, that was their real mark of sanctity — I never felt better than in their presence.
Temperature inversion
Note on recycling
Thrilling sports action — maybe
If you’re up early (it’s 7 a.m. here), you can catch the games of current world championship chess match here. This time Magnus Carlsen faces Ian Nepomniachtchi. So far it’s been nothing but draws, like the Carlsen/Caruana face-off, but perhaps there will be some decisive action as the match progresses.
Update: Eight hours and 136 moves later, we finally have a win in a classical game.
Update II: After starting with five draws, Carlsen won four of the next six games, winning the match and retaining his title.
Further iterations

I recently checked to see if there are any new fractal generators since I last played with them. Apparently not, at least for Macs not running the latest OS. Ultra Fractal is still the most capable. It’s pricey, but it does give you a month’s free trial. Xaos works well also, and it’s free.
Fractal Domains and Fraqtive have not been updated since I last used them over five years ago. It’s possible to make pretty, complicated pictures with them, but it’s a struggle, and to my eyes the results from the other two applications look better. Both are free now, so check them out if you’re curious.



For all of these, right-click and open in a new window to see every little detail.
Thought for the day
… old age begins when you decide it begins.
Today’s curious fact
There are more expressions and proverbs concerning the nose in Russian than in any other language in the world.
(From here.)
For gearheads
The benefits of boredom
Perhaps I should consider moving to Switzerland.
Being bored is, in my opinion, one the principal reasons for living in Switzerland: when you needn’t be obsessed with crazy people in the government or on the streets doing crazy things, you have a lot more time and mental energy to concentrate on more productive and enjoyable things which are not boring.
Odds and ends, mostly odd
Today’s useful term: “counter-Renaissance.” E.g.,
The Nazi leader who described the National Socialist revolution as a counter-Renaissance spoke more truly than he probably knew. It was a decisive step in the destruction of that civilization which modern man had built up from the age of the Renaissance….
—F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom.
***
… for all the (mostly true) complaints about how horribly misogynist the Gor novels were, the core audience was female. The local bookstore clerks who more-or-less adopted me in the late Seventies often laughed about how women would come up to the counter with a Gor novel artfully concealed in the middle of their purchases.
I tried reading one of Norman’s novels once but gave up half-way through. He didn’t like women and had no understanding of them. Or so I thought — apparently he understood some well enough.
***
Greely found a little game:
“List 5 famous people you’ve either met or have been within a few feet of, but ONE is a lie. Then let your friends guess which one they think is a lie.”
Let’s play.
1. Wendy Whelan
2. Phil Keaggy
3. William F. Buckley, Jr.
4. R.A. Lafferty
5. James Lee Burke
(Don’t recognize all the names? All are legendary in their fields, though those fields might be ballet or music, rather than sports or television.)
***
Today’s quote
“She hasn’t got any intellect to speak of; but you don’t need any intellect to be an intellectual.”
— G.K. Chesterton, “The Scandal of Father Brown”
Department of continuing education
Accounting
Analyzing a city budget accurately
Finance
Building a financial model
History
Coming of Age in Mao’s China
The Battle of Athens, Tennessee
Le Génocide franco-français
Further reading
Literature
Giovanni Guareschi
Political theory
Popes on revolution
64-square battleground
Starved for sports? Need some thrills? Catch the Magnus Carlsen Invitational chess tournament, in which eight of the world’s strongest players play rapid chess online. The field includes two Americans, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana, as well as Carlsen himself. The games begin today at 9 a.m. central time.1 You can also watch the games here.
Peculiar visions
I had a brief, odd dream this morning. I was reading the Sunday comics. On the last page, where Pearls Before Swine usually goes in the Wichita paper, there were two wide panels depicting groups of unsvelte middle-aged women in classical garb, like troupes of Margaret Dumonts costumed as Roman matrons. Some were sitting, some were standing. All were holding holding Union Jacks, and all had beards. These two panels were in black and white, like illustrations from an old book.
Underneath, in place of Sherman’s Lagoon, was a single panel depicting a variety of mostly unfamiliar superheroes. The only one I recognized was Marvel’s Thor. All of them held some version of the Stars and Stripes. This panel was in glossy color, like the cover of an old comic book.
Then I woke up. Make of it what you will.
Unrelated update:
Where we are now, Mr. Despair was thirteen years ago.
Would it be prudent not to inquire whom else brassieres are for?
Postcard from 1862
This is the first game I ever played with Professor Anderssen, the greatest German player, and at that time in the zenith of his fame. For a novice to offer so brilliant an expert the Muzio was like Ivanhoe challenging Bois-Gilbert in the lists at Ashby, but we were nothing if not daring in those days, and the cautious modern safety-loving youth of today had not yet been evolved.