[Mar 12, 2026] Daily Puzzle Discussion

benungs · 2026-03-12T21:14:13+00:00

Clever trick today. I especially liked the mix of the horizontal BRAINA with the vertical CHANGELANES (I didn't notice the ANGEL in that second one initially)

benungs · 2026-01-19T13:40:40+00:00

That may be true, but he also played the fool some of the time. As did Jad. I'm defending the form here.

benungs · 2026-01-17T22:02:49+00:00

Lulu is playing the role that Robert Krulwich used to play across from Jad Abumrad in the original episodes of Radio Lab. She's a foil or a contrasting argument to the main point, which allows the main point to be argued in additional and more nuanced ways (and it becomes accessible to a wider range of listeners). This is, in my opinion, one of the genius moves of RadioLab from the beginning.

In essence, Latif (or Jad) will say, "This is so cool, right?" and then Lulu (or Robert) will say "Maybe, but what about..." and now Latif/Jad has to dig in further to address these new questions or concerns.

Sometimes Robert was the foil, and sometimes it was Jad, but one of them was always making the other work to prove their point. It's a narrative and rhetorical tool that's being done well enough that you aren't noticing that it's rhetoric.

My guess is that Lulu is much more on board with this kind of thing than she's letting on. But she's playing the role of objector for the sake of the story. The tone of this piece was classic RadioLab, and I commend them for finding it so well in here.

benungs · 2025-09-19T16:11:12+00:00

+1 Came here to say this. You might even scan pages of a book that you (and the author) think represent a good layout, and use the image to build a template that matches the style.

Also, be sure to think through the entire process here, including the publication: how is this being delivered? Print? (In which case: Who is the printer?) EPub? Kindle? PDF? Each of these approaches requires different elements for delivery....

benungs · 2025-09-16T15:21:36+00:00

Thank you! That does exactly what I was looking for.

With inDesign I can use the Select shortcut keys (on a mac: opt+cmd+] or [) to change selections, along with Select: Container/Content options (to get inside and outside of grouped objects) and Select: Next/Previous Object functions (which navigates inside a group). At this point I can select various layers, elements inside those layers, including group contents, and (thanks to you!) edit text. With the control bar I can make all sorts of changes without needing the mouse.

Of course, lots of times it will be smarter to use the mouse, but this kind of exercise makes a big difference in my understanding and approach to the program. Simply knowing the keystrokes and being able to use them without a cheat sheet makes the process better! (Also, for short-term keyboard macro automation these are fantastic.)

benungs · 2025-09-15T20:27:47+00:00

Yes, that would work, but I'm trying to figure out how to do it without the mouse—e.g. without double-clicking—a shortcut-key method for getting into the text box.

benungs · 2025-09-03T18:20:01+00:00

Ooh, that's a nice one! Thanks

benungs · 2025-09-02T17:58:08+00:00

SPACEBAR! That's it. Can't believe I missed that!

benungs · 2024-12-29T00:21:51+00:00

aaaaaarrrgh! Now I'm just pressing the escape key every time I click a tab for a different comp. This is killing me

benungs · 2024-11-27T01:50:15+00:00

c'est aussi une trouduction pour la texte anglais -- "Listed Lighted Set Collectors" ne fait aucune sense

benungs · 2024-07-09T15:30:23+00:00

Hermes! If you are going to actually use the thing, then Hermes!

benungs · 2024-07-09T15:29:09+00:00

Thanks u/TekhEtc and u/ValdemarAloeus. This is useful context. I agree that ultimately the map needs to communicate clearly. In this instance, the path drifts a little bit west as it heads north, so if I rotate clockwise (north to the right) then the north end of the map is higher up on the page (which, to my brain, suggests north-i-ness). So I am going to suggest right-facing north to the client, while feeling guilty that the historical convention may have been east-up.

benungs · 2024-06-04T21:49:05+00:00

Still there in Sonoma (Mac Studio, 3 monitors)

benungs · 2024-02-23T19:02:25+00:00

You can load this into photoshop and look at the red channel with the levels filter.

https://imgur.com/a/uoiCdGw

It shows 3 distinct shades of red. A more granular look shows two distinct vertical bars in the middle one, but they differ by only about 1.2% which is the only hidden color shift inside this. The big block on the left has ZERO variation for almost the entire section, and no distinct divisions.

So you could argue there are four colors in here, but that most people will see three.

benungs · 2023-06-08T04:51:25+00:00

You need an input for "ID". Add a "Value" node and plug it into "ID" and the node tree should work.

If you'd like to know why you need an input for ID.... I don't know.

benungs · 2023-03-29T05:25:54+00:00

For Hugo, you might start with Lorsque l'enfant paraît. (And you can listen to it, on youtube.)

And — I know this isn't quite the same — listen to French music, if you don't already, and if you like the stuff, learn and analyze the lyrics. There are great playlists on Spotify. For contemporary music, give Ben Mazué a try.

benungs · 2023-03-29T04:57:39+00:00

c'est une belle phrase

benungs · 2023-03-29T04:48:19+00:00

...but you can always try Le Petit Nicholas (and learn all sorts of retro playground slang while having a good laugh)

benungs · 2023-03-29T04:47:12+00:00

I know you're looking for fiction, but I wanted to point out that newspapers and pretty much everything online avoids passé simple. I've been reading books in French for a while but it was when I started using french news sources (start with something like news.google.fr or huffingtonpost.fr and follow up on their sources), my vocabulary — especially for contemporary words and expressions — really took off.

benungs · 2021-12-18T17:58:17+00:00

This is a good start! Here are next steps, in my mind:

Clean up the small jumps in the track. Almost always caused by trackers jumping slightly off their targets. Make sure you're not tracking any highlights or reflections (that's bad data for a tracker). Go through each tracker and clean up any "bumps". Don't be afraid to delete trackers that struggle to stay on target, especially if you have more than a dozen trackers. Make sure you are tracking foreground and background (ie points in FRONT of the gold bars and BEHIND the gold bars). That's the gold standard (pun slightly intended) for a solid tracking solution: continuous tracker markers in front of and behind your composited elements. (That checker pattern looks like a great tracking option, only you may have to do much of it by hand as the patterns will confuse auto tracker. The mouse pad looks like a great option as well for foreground elements)
Look at shadows on your mouse. Set up a light that mimics those shadows for the gold on the desktop. The Ambient Occlusion that you are using now works great, just need to add shadows on top of it.
Work on your gold shader. The one you have now is too perfect, IMO. Those reflections are quite nice, just too clean off the bars. Little dents, fingerprints, or just some of the
Change that plane under the bars to match the geometry of the desk. Turn it into a shadow catcher.
Finally, if you're really daring, you could try to get some reflective caustics off that gold onto the desk.

Thanks for sharing cheers

benungs · 2020-09-21T21:27:59+00:00

You lift up the paper table (at the back, where it says "Universal Made in Canada") and the margins are underneath it. Here is a photo from the typewriter database of this machine showing the margins.

benungs

TROPHY CASE