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The Bro Jogan Experience: Gravity

2023-06-26
Rant, Story

Welcome back to the Bro Jogan experience.

Bro: Today we have our long awaited debate between Professor Albert Michaelson…

Albert: Thank you, Bro.

Bro: And Xalthra the Perpetually Vomiting.

Xalthra: *vomits*

Bro: Thanks for coming. So uh, Albert, you’re an expert on gravity.

Albert: That’s probably safe to say, yes. I’m the chair of the physics department at Purdue University and the head of the joint research council for cosmological and applied physics.

Bro: And Xalthra, welcome back to the show. I understand you have a new book on how gravity is a false concept. “Smash-and-Grab-ity: How big aviation wants you to pay more for less safety.”

Xalthra: *vomits*

Bro: We’ve been seeing stories about this all over the place. So Albert, why should we be paying more for less safety?

Albert: That feels like a mischaracterization of the position. I’m not proposing that we pay more for less safety, I’m suggesting that Xalthra’s proposal to completely deregulate the aviation industry is not based on any evidence. Or, really, I’m rebutting the idea that gravity isn’t real for domestic practical purposes, and I’m suggesting that we do have a good understanding of the behavior of gravity on the scale of classical dynamics.

Xalthra: *vomits*

Bro: I think Xalthra is making a good point there. Do you have a rebuttal?

Albert: I’m not sure quite where to begin. There was nothing really to rebut. I’m not sure there were even words in there.

Bro: But you are the expert in gravity? So what do you think about all the people who have fallen out of airplanes and survived?

Albert: I mean, there do exist people who have fallen out of airplanes and survived, but they constistute a small minority of individuals, and even if they did survive–

Xalthra: *vomits again, more violently*

Bro: Yeah, it sounds to me like falling distance and death are uncorrugated.

Albert: Uncorrelated?

Bro: Yeah, like fall more and you’re no more likely to die. I have a buddy who fell out of a fourth story window one night, landed on his neck, and he’s still alive, so why should we be giving the airlines all this money to keep us safe?

Albert: There’s a lot to unpack here. The plural of anecdote is not data. And I’m fairly sure falling and death may well be correlated. Even if they weren’t, you can still test gravity, which is the point. Giving money to the aviation industry doesn’t necessarily mean they’re keeping you safer. It’s not like your dollars go to airplane manufacturers to keep us safe. It’s the regulatory body that’s responsible for ensuring the airplane manuf–

Bro: Let’s go into that. Giving money to the aviation industry doesn’t mean they’re keeping you safer.

Albert: That’s not the best pull-quote.

Bro: I know all kinds of old people that will fall out of their beds and die. The stories are all over the internet, you can do the research.

Xalthra: *vomits*

Bro: Exactly, so really, can any of us know that gravity exists for a fact?

Albert: That’s more of a philosophical tangent. Epistemology is not my specialty and not the route I’m hoping to travel.

Bro: But you’re the one that said epidemiology should track all kinds of deaths?

Albert: Uh.Bro: We have the pull quote, “The CDC is a perfectly fine agency to measure gun fatalities. It’s not perfect, but they’re well equipped to monitor other causes of death, so it’s a good stopgap.”

Albert: Epidemiology is not epistomol–

Bro: So did you or did you not say that?

Albert: That’s not relevant.

Bro: Sounds relevant to me.

Xalthra: *vomits again*

Bro: I think we’re going to have to wrap this up. I’d like to thank our guests for coming on the show tonight.

New Year’s Resolutions

2022-12-30
Rant

Let’s get the 4k jokes out now. All done? Great.

My personal website started as a way of tracking my New Year’s resolution some 12 years ago. It’s still up as a place for putting short stories, rants, and guides. I think cohost as a microblogging platform is taking over that role in some respects, but I’m not ready to make a redirect here. I’ll settle for cross-posting.

I’ve been burned out a half-dozen times in about as many years, and something that particularly gets to me is not long hours but a lack of shipping anything. Spending a year on a project to have it canned is more demoralizing than spending a week under duress. In the interest of resolving this, I would like to ship one small app or game per month. It seems strange that adding more strain to the schedule would cause less stress, but every vacation I’ve had so far this year has been absolutely plagued by depression over getting nothing done and yet somehow failing to relax.

This will not be a trivial matter, as work, home obligations, and a commute leave me with almost solely the hours of 7:30PM to 10:30PM, Mon/Wed/Th/Fri to myself. That’s 12 hours a week plus whatever I can do on Saturday morning. That’s 48 hours a month at maximum efficiency, and probably rather optimistic, given I need to do domestic things like laundry and cleaning and taking care of people/creatures.

Is it really worth spending the little time I’ve got making games instead of cultivating a skill like making art or practicing music? I’m not sure. 12 hours a week feels like so little time for all the things I want to do, but this is the reality of the situation, so I guess the only option is to make the most of it.

So many resolutions revolve around suddenly having discipline never before demonstrated in one’s life, and this isn’t much different. Perhaps I can simply make do with building up a habit.

#blacklivesmatter

2020-06-02
Rant

Just in case there was ever any doubt where the politics of this blog stand, #blacklivesmatter.

Thank you to the protestors who are willing to brave the teargas and rubber bullets.

Thank you to the countless individuals who are willing to risk your lives in the midst of an epidemic to march against injustice.

Take care of yourselves. Stay safe.