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Dec. 2, 1869 - Seattle incorporates

It came across my Facebook feed. (I'm an old person, I have an interest in Seattle history and so Facebook shows me a fair bit of it.) The post came from the Washington State Archives:

Our Document of the Day: Seattle was incorporated 155 years ago today on December 2, 1869, by the territorial legislature. At the time, Seattle had a population of a little over 1,000 residents. Seattle was originally incorporated in 1865, governed by a board of trustees. Citizens petitioned for dissolution in 1867 due to questionable activities by the elected leaders, which the Washington Territorial Legislature in Olympia granted. Late in 1869, citizens asked for a mayor and town council in lieu of governance by a board, and the legislature granted their request with reincorporation and a new town charter.

📷 Municipal articles of incorporation for Seattle, W.T., 1869. Territorial Laws, Washington State Archives.

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Advent of Code - Day 3: Mull It Over

• Part 1 - 1 submission
• Part 2 - 4 submissions

Part 1 was very straight forward with regex as the key to solving it. Part 2 took me a bit longer. I had watched a video of another coder solving a previous day's challenge and they dutifully coded and tested the examples in each day's problem. Something I usually skipped over. Today I was determined to hold to them. It served me well on the first part, but the 2nd part contains an element of it which the test data doesn't catch for you and it took me a while to fix it.

I ended up using part of the solution from another poster's code. I had a non-regex concept for how to do it, but they showed me how to integrate it as part of the regex. However, the pitfall caught me still.

The core issue is that the "state" of whether to process the inputs carries over across lines of text from the input. This isn't something the test data covers (though the problem makes plain how it should work.) So even though my testing implementation worked, it fell down on the larger dataset.

I figured it out though.

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Advent of Code - Day 2: Red-Nosed Reports

• Part 1 - 2 submissions
• Part 2 - 3 submissions

Took me a little bit longer on this one. First wrong submission for part 1 was because I forgot the rules regarding the difference allowed between numbers in the series. Then I had to do a fair bit of bug fixing before landing on the correct second guess. Part 2 is, I am sure, an inelegant solution where I brute forced the failing lines. I am certain there is a more elegant solution for it. But, in the end, I got both answers.

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"Philosopher Slavoj Žižek on 'soft' fascism, AI & the effects of shamelessness in public life"

I haven't watched it yet, but saving it here.

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The rarest mineral has only ever been found once

It's called kyawthuite (cha-too-ite), a tiny, tawny-hued grain weighing just a third of a gram (1.61 carats). On first glance, you might mistaken it for amber or topaz; but the unassuming mineral speck has value beyond measure.

The stone itself was purchased in 2010 at a market in Chaung-gyi in Myanmar by gemologist Kyaw Thu, who thought the raw gem was a mineral called scheelite. After he faceted the stone, though, he realized that he was looking at something unusual.

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Advent of Code - Day 1: Historian Hysteria

I opted to use PHP as it is what I know best, and I knew the functions it had would be well suited to this problem suite.

My notes after completing today's challenge:

• Part 1 - 1 correct submission
• Part 2 - 1 incorrect, then 1 correct submission

Nailed the first part on the first run. The second one had two issues which I had to correct after 1 incorrect submission. First, I only skimmed the directions (shame on me) and I assumed that they wanted me to only compare unique numbers in the left column. Second was a bug on my part of not trimming off the new line when reading in from the text file.

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The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore (2024) - DNF Review

The Bookshop by Evan Friss
Bookshop | Amazon

I made it roughly halfway through the book before calling it quits. I found the general segments interesting, but I found it tiresome for the continual jumping around which is necessary for the sweeping history of the bookstore and publishing industry in America.

There was a lot of interesting insights in the book, interspersed with snippets about independent bookstores which sometimes played a part in larger historical narratives the author tells. But there is not chronology to fall back upon as the book often jumps forward and backwards through time between chapters.

I think a lot of people will enjoy the book, but I just ran out of steam on it and am ready to move onto a new book.

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In & Out (1997) - 3 out of 5 Teacher of the Year Awards

In & Out1997PG-13

I saw this movie back when it first came out with my dad and sister. He didn't, I don't think, do much research and we went because it was a comedy starring Kevin Klein and Joan Cusack. Little did he know what it was.

It's a cute movie and though it definitely feels dated in its portrayal and handling of homosexuality in a small midwest town, it still made me laugh a number of times.

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"For his wife’s 40th birthday, he paid for 40 shelter dog adoptions"

The couple volunteer every weekend at Chesapeake Animal Services in Chesapeake, Virginia, and it was during one of those visits about a month ago that Andrew suddenly hit on the perfect idea: The animal shelter had 40 dog kennels that were always full. What if he were to pay the $110 adoption fee for each of the 40 dogs?

Although it would cost a total of $4,400 to cover the costs of spaying, neutering, microchipping and vaccines for 40 dogs, Andrew said he knew the gift would mean more to his wife than anything he could buy in a store.

They'd recently lost one of their three dogs, Sierra, and he thought sponsoring the adoptions to help dogs find forever homes would help Jennifer cheer up.

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"A Firsthand Account of What Homelessness in America Is Really Like"

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The origins of the quote "The arc of the universe is long, but it curves towards justice."

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

The quote came up in conversation at Thanksgiving with some friends. I correctly attributed it's usage to Martin Luther King Jr., however, upon arriving home I hopped on Google to confirm my recollection and found the linked article which shares the history of the quote and attributes it to Theodore Parker.

The article cites the following excerpt from Theodore Parker in 1853 as the origin of the quote:

Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

Things refuse to be mismanaged long. Jefferson trembled when he thought of slavery and remembered that God is just. Ere long all America will tremble.

It goes on to recount numerous usages over the years from 1853 all the way up to Dr. King's usage in his speech.

Quite an interesting read.

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Let the turkey cool!

From America's Test Kitchen on social media:

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"Fossilized footprints reveal 2 extinct hominin species living side by side 1.5 million years ago"

This is the first time ever that scientists have been able to say that Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei – one our likely ancestor and the other a more distant relative – actually coexisted at the same time and place. Along with many different species of mammals, they were both members of the ancient community that inhabited the Turkana Basin.

Not only that, but with the new tracks as references, our analyses suggest that other previously described hominin tracks in the same region indicate that these two hominins coexisted in this area of the Turkana Basin for at least 200,000 years, repeatedly leaving their footprints in the shallow lake margin habitat.

Very exciting and interesting stuff as a discovery.

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Ted Danson & Bill Hader interview

Really enjoyed this interview podcast this morning. Just a lovely conversation between two charming people.

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