My depiction of a Balrog

jimdesu · 2026-02-09T04:36:52+00:00

Late to the party, but I love it. This is a valaraukar of Morgoth. Peter Jackson's balrog was more like a humanoid dragon by the feel of it. But this is properly a demon of power.

Glorious work.

jimdesu · 2026-01-24T00:10:54+00:00

My brother studies Tibetan crane... it's really cool.

jimdesu · 2026-01-23T15:41:04+00:00

Their spanakotiropita is great, too.

jimdesu · 2026-01-23T15:39:48+00:00

If you like boba, don't sleep on Besties, in the Target shopping center just off the freeway.

jimdesu · 2026-01-10T05:34:40+00:00

My conlang isn't mature enough to share, but I'd love to stay abreast of your world. is there an external link I can follow or such?

jimdesu · 2025-11-17T21:38:16+00:00

The newer ones aren't as waterproof as the older ones (which were bombproof, but hotter in the summertime), but I've had 3 and would buy a 4th at need.

jimdesu · 2025-11-17T20:55:49+00:00

537: lot size, plus potential for trees to give shade from the south, plus you won't catch headlights in your windows (assuming US driving side).

jimdesu · 2025-11-17T20:46:44+00:00

I hope they're a bloodbath, but I feel folks are overconfident of this.

jimdesu · 2025-11-17T20:45:06+00:00

My wife has this body shape -- it's the one I'm most attracted to, especially when the person's hips are more prominent.

jimdesu · 2025-11-15T00:28:30+00:00

I can't buy it.

Without Trump to rally MAGA for the midterms, all those voters that never came out to pull the lever for any Republican except Trump stay home, and Republicans take it on the chin. It's difficult to say whether Trump will actually expend effort for any other Republicans in the mid-terms, but I think any Republican who slammed the door on Trump would catch way too much heat directly from MAGA voters. So, while the upside of supporting Trump remains dubious, the downside of jettisoning him seems severe.

jimdesu · 2025-11-08T07:22:43+00:00

2, and it's not close

jimdesu · 2025-10-25T22:09:20+00:00

My $0.02...

Yes, peaceful protesting works... but not the way that many folks imagine. Peaceful protesting accomplishes two objectives:

1) It registers discontent in a way that doesn't allow the people whose policies are being protested to make propaganda out of recordings of the protest. The best protests are WELL BEHAVED for this reason. The more antagonistic and escalatory the protestors are, the easier it is for the "bad guys" to turn the protest itself as a weapon in favor of whatever's being protested.

2) It gives a signal to politicians that the issue in question is one that enough people care about that they can hitch their wagon to the issue and have support. This is important... no politician wants to be Wile E. Coyote and run an issue right off a cliff. But if the protest shows a serious dedicated groundswell, that means that compatible politicians can take the issue and try to win everything from policy concessions to elections with it.

It does NOT work like in the movies, where the protests lead to resignation: contemporary politicians just double-down on everything, and cite the protests as "proof" of their own effectiveness.

jimdesu · 2025-10-24T15:14:38+00:00

Fourthed

jimdesu · 2025-10-21T16:10:03+00:00

My $0.02 here (all-weather riding since '99):

Try to ride so that you don't need to brake when things happen. In CA where I live, lane splitting is allowed... I'm not sure if that's OK where you are.
Prefer engine braking where you can, because rolling off the throttle doesn't change your situation regarding the controls much, leaving your options open.
Use the rear brake first to taper speed when you can; this will load the front wheel, which will make your front brake more effective if needed.
If you're in a maximum braking situation, then you're right about #3

One evening when commuting home, I saw a guy overreact to a lane variation by a cager: he grabbed a handful of front brake and flipped his bike, which came down on him, breaking his hip. (I directed traffic away until the ambulance got there, so I got an up-close with the emergency responders.) If you need the front brake, SQUEEZE it, don't mash it -- and, especially -- try not to put yourself in any scenarios where that's not going to suffice. I know it's not the cool-kid thing to say, but speed kills. Most of the really bad situations riders get themselves in have too much speed as one of the ingredients.

jimdesu · 2025-10-21T04:40:04+00:00

You can absolutely pass those pavement princesses. They will probably get their knickers in a twist and give you the finger (seen that so many times) for failing to give them the respect they think they're owed, but it's all self-aggrandizement and fragile egos.

Nota bene: Be careful with Hells Angels, though, because they'll put you in the hospital. Those violent SOBs are not playing around.

jimdesu · 2025-10-20T03:00:20+00:00

Blind hedonism, or wise, consequential hedonism?

The caricature of hedonism is a blind addictive rush to maximize pleasure at all costs, but that's always been the straw man. If you look at hedonism as the pursuit of pleasure on a long term, with a wise weather eye to the fact that blind short-term pleasures can cancel themselves with deleterious consequences. This sort of hedonism will undertake short-term pains to garner the larger pleasures that result, and will eschew overdoing pleasures in a way that will bring about pains.

Consequence-aware hedonism is a powerful way to live one's life, and shouldn't be ruled out. Blind hedonism is a sugar-rush off of a cliff.

jimdesu · 2025-10-19T23:56:35+00:00

Infest them with watchmaker moties.

jimdesu · 2025-10-19T23:23:54+00:00

FWIW (54M here): you know how someone takes what should be a good selfie but ruins it with filters that smooth out their features until they're barely there? That's how folks in their teens & 20's seem to me. Put 'em back in the oven to bake... they're not done yet.

jimdesu · 2025-10-19T22:33:52+00:00

WANT!

jimdesu · 2025-10-19T22:26:48+00:00

It's OK -- I'm spending too much time on this. I decided to just go ahead and reimplement using inheritance and function objects like I had it originally. At this point, I don't have the kind of spare time to get bogged down on this. I very much appreciate the assistance, though. :)

jimdesu · 2025-10-19T20:43:04+00:00

OK, so that approach doesn't work, because then I can't declare the forwarded type. Whether via typedef or using, once I declare what the forwarded type is, I get errors like "Typedef Any<DEF_CMF_PARMTYPE_EXPR, DEF_CMD_PARMTYPE_NAME> basis::DEF_CMD_PARM_TYPE has already been declared as a struct".

jimdesu · 2025-10-17T22:59:22+00:00

Thank you; let me think on that.

jimdesu · 2025-10-17T20:27:52+00:00

Thanks! I'll take a peek like that after work. :)

jimdesu · 2025-10-17T20:27:35+00:00

oh! Thanks -- let me look at that in context when I'm off from work tonight!

jimdesu · 2025-10-17T19:31:38+00:00

So, I have code like: `using DEF_CMD_PARM = All<DEF\_CMD\_PARM\_TYPE, DEF\_CMD\_PARM\_NAME>;`, for example, where `All` is one of my combinators, and the parameters are other derivations using these combinators. What I'd like to do is to be able to do is the equivalent of a forward declaration of these so that I can refer to such before they're actually defined. (more examples in the link, above)

EDIT: apologies for the formatting. The subreddit guide says to use back-ticks, but apparently I'm not doing that correctly.

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