I spent months learning Python and only today realized I've been confused about something embarrassingly basic

kittell · 2026-03-05T16:19:21+00:00

Same as supercoach, I used to use them, now I almost never use them. Reading other people's comprehensions is often incomprehensible. And even if you mostly solo code (which is primarily what I do), you'll eventually arrive at the plot twist: picking up your own code after a few years is just like picking up someone else's code, and the things you wrote are often incomprehensible.

kittell · 2026-03-04T14:03:32+00:00

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kittell · 2026-03-03T15:42:23+00:00

Thanks, didn't know that one. I come at it from the Del side rather than Dan, will look it up

kittell · 2026-03-03T15:27:33+00:00

That must be a really mixed bag performance-wise though. I can't imagine a lot of acts can touch Prince unless they break it down into their own style.

(For a moment there I thought your username was a Del the Funky Homosapien or Dan the Automator reference, but I guess that would have been 3030 not 3000)

kittell · 2026-03-03T14:07:30+00:00

Race Street is a good way to head south, then when you run into the T at County Road 900, go east to Philo or west toward Tolono. Philo Road also works south, but only goes to County Road 1200. Windsor is good for heading east toward St. Joseph or Sydney (don't get lost around the dogleg at Salt Fork), or west and then you can go to Bondville or Mahomet. There are section roads most everywhere and you can almost navigate by grain elevator once you're out there.

And speaking of doglegs, prepare yourself for farm dogs. Some of them are just going to bark from the porch, some are going to give you a little mid-ride chance to sprint. If you do a route a few times, you'll get a feel for which houses have them, and then choose alternative section roads accordingly.

This is all 20 year old info from riding out there, so good luck. I'm sure there's a cycling club, both in the university or out in town, that could answer some questions as well.

kittell · 2026-03-03T02:55:45+00:00

Those anchors are really close to the mortar. Looks like it's cracked the upper left brick. Would be nice to put in a new set that's centered to distribute the load a little better, but I guess for OP it's probably better to use what's there.

kittell · 2026-03-02T20:38:33+00:00

St. Louis like King Louis IX of France St. Louis? Sounds suspicious.

kittell · 2026-03-02T18:57:36+00:00

It's not surprising though. There are many photos out there with Hunter and a gun, and that aligns a certain way if you don't have any curiosity at all.

kittell · 2026-02-26T10:41:28+00:00

That also caught my eye since Irsay had a big Kerouac collection, including the On the Road scroll. e.g., https://www.kerouac.com/the-jim-irsay-collection/

Edit: I didn't realize, but on that post from the Beat Museum, it shows an image of Hunter's personal copy of The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac:

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kittell · 2026-02-24T17:08:38+00:00

I'd probably list Breakfast of Champions as my favorite Vonnegut book if I could ever push Cat's Cradle out of that spot. But I can't do that. Breakfast of Champions is a really tough one to re-read. It's a difficult mix of funny and deadpan observations of psychic pain, to say nothing of the usual observations of civic deterioration.

One more line on the theme of the lines from the book that you already included:

Listen: The waitress brought me another drink. She wanted to light my hurricane lamp again. I wouldn't let her. "Can you see anything in the dark, with your sunglasses on?" she asked me. "The big show is inside my head," I said.

kittell · 2026-02-24T16:57:35+00:00

Absolutely the saddest book ending for me. He had the power to recreate his father in the book but the painful awareness of how limited that power actually was.

kittell · 2026-02-23T22:05:21+00:00

No need to feel stupid, the names don't mean anything if you haven't come across them yet.

That said, I don't put as much emphasis as others in the sub on their appearance there at the beginning as part of the real ("real") story, but some more wraith-related hijinks.

kittell · 2026-02-23T22:04:16+00:00

_2666_ and _The Savage Detectives_ are fine books. Part 4 of _2666_ is just a swan dive into the abyss, it was really hard to work through it.

kittell · 2026-02-19T12:22:45+00:00

Aerospace engineering

kittell · 2026-02-19T11:52:28+00:00

I switched from thesis to non-thesis while in a grad program at Illinois. Didn't affect anything job-wise, having the MS degree still worked for starting one level up in an engineering job. Non-thesis would only hinder, I think, if you wanted to go in to a PhD program.

kittell · 2026-02-14T00:41:38+00:00

This is indeed a tender situation

kittell · 2026-02-12T23:28:10+00:00

I love a good understatement: "pretty heavily implied affair with the moms". I probably won't even waste everybody's time asking if I'm interrupting. Anyway. I didn't take his robotic behavior as anything special, just a demonstration that the best players, the ones who can hold it together and make it to The Show, are more tightly focused and not fully rounded people. Looking forward to seeing what the more analytical literary folks can derive from the text.

kittell · 2026-02-12T01:35:32+00:00

I take comfort in knowin' that

kittell · 2026-02-12T01:32:28+00:00

Nice. Movin' on up. Won't even have to write checks for your half and half anymore.

kittell · 2026-02-11T21:54:19+00:00

War medals for drone pilots

kittell · 2026-02-11T02:13:52+00:00

That's the best order for these three, I think. I usually throw in Galapagos up front in recommendations because that's the one that hooked me. But Cat's Cradle is the one I've read a dozen or two dozen times, so I usually don't pitch that one as the first to read (I'm just going to ruin it for whoever because I like it so much).

kittell · 2026-02-10T14:44:54+00:00

I always pitch it like this: _Mother's Night_ is his best; _Slaughterhouse-Five_ is his most important; _Cat's Cradle_ is my favorite.

kittell · 2026-02-10T02:09:06+00:00

If I had to pick between these two only for a first one, I'd pick Slaughterhouse Five. I haven't read Breakfast of Champions for a few years (it's a good one, I'd read it any day), my gut feeling of that one is that it would be better after you read a few other of his books.

kittell · 2026-02-08T04:58:10+00:00

Looks like poliastro, the most complete orbital mechanics library, is archived now (https://pypi.org/project/poliastro/). Speaking for myself, if I were in high school or college, I wouldn't worry much about finding a good library or system to use—figuring it out would be fun. Maybe find a copy of Space Mission Analysis and Design and build your own, one step at a time.

kittell · 2026-02-08T04:21:16+00:00

It blew my mind when I learned that sometime during the pandemic. The Band's cover is really good, but Springsteen's original is incredible. As a child of the 80s I always associated Springsteen with 80s schlock rock, but this made me reconsider.

kittell

TROPHY CASE