The Journal
2024-11-18 (☽): VI: The lovers, reversed
I didn't reply to her message.
2024-11-17 (☉): Oh, the names
<- This is Shirogami, the mascot of cidoku.net. She has very long and wavy white hair, dresses in suits and dark colors and only speaks rarely. She's a witch highly skilled in the use of magic, but not so much in more mundane things. | ||
And this is Kurogami. -> She's not the mascot of cidoku.net, but she shows up often anyway. She has black hair, straight and not so long, dresses in colorful feminine clothes, talks a lot and although she can't use magic, her fists are powerful. |
These two stars are the yin and yang, they
oppose and complement each other. And so as different as they are they
also have something in common (besides their red shoes), something
that keeps me up at night: their names might be wrong.
Their original names were just Whitehair and Blackhair
respectively, in plain English, but one day I decided that Japanese names
would look cooler and be more universal (remember my site is bilingual)
and, lo, it was done. However, now I know much more Japanese than four
years ago and I realized that neither shirogami nor kurogami
are really Japanese words: the horror! How was I to amend this
without simply reverting them to their original names?
So began my investigation, focusing on Whitehair. To get shirogami,
I originally took the Japanese word for "white" (白, shiro) and
stuck it to the word for "hair" (髪, kami), changing the k
sound for a g sound.
Alas, 白髪 is never read shirogami! It's read shiraga,
hakuhatsu, shirokami or shirakami, to taste.
According to the
entry on 白髪
in the Pixiv encyclopedia, the reading shiraga mostly refers to
the grey hairs that come with age, while it's more common to use
hakuhatsu for white hair in general, as can be readily seen in the
examples on the entry. The reading shirokami is also sometimes used
with the general nuance of hakuhatsu, like for example in
白髪教団
(shirokami kyoudan). Finally, the reading shirakami, I must
admit, I didn't look into too much. However, the popular vtuber
Shirakami Fubuki certainly has white hair, but her shirakami is
written 白上, not 白髪, but I'm sure it's what kids these days call a
play on the words.
Okay, so? Am I gonna change her name to Shirokami? Well, I could do it,
but there's a reason I said that shirogami only might
be wrong. This uncertainty is founded on the possibility that, although
白髪 isn't read shirogami, if I could find a character with
white hair called shirogami (even without the kanji) created by a
Japanese person, then that would be a good reason to think
that shirogami is actually a real word that a real Japanese person
could have come up with. And, well, yeah. There is one:
in the 合体コロコロコミック (Gattai Korokoro Comic)
magazine there was a manga titled
シロガミくんの神隠し (Shirogami-kun no Kamikakushi) by author
川辺ソーダ where Shirogami, a white haired boy, uncovers a series of
mysterious abductions (source).
And that's the end of the problem. It's fine for my characters to be
named Shirogami and Kurogami. Maybe it was always fine. Now watch this
space as I try to find the boy Shirogami manga and finally read it.
2024-11-16 (♄): On leaving the social network
2024-09-03 (♂): Energy vampires
"Cover your navel with a bandage whenever you have to deal with someone you're suspicious of being an energy sucker and you'll be good as long as you keep it covered. The body naturally loses energy through the navel, but some people have bad blood and they take your energy from you, so they're bound to be more tiring to be around. No, it's not any sort of amulet; it's a secret, a granny thing. It's similar to making a newborn wear their first clothes inside out, with the seams on the inside, to prevent people from giving the child the eye. Things we had to know."
2024-08-12 (☽): This was never meant to be "authentic"
2024-08-06 (♂): Progress with the accordion / Storm
Last week we experienced one of the biggest storms in the recorded history of my general location with hurricane-like winds that brought down hundreds of trees and left millions without electricity, including me. My home was without power just for two days, while thousands of others remain in the dark still. The day of the storm, when the winds had subsided, I went out to get some candles and stuff for my dogs, marveling at what a tree aided by wind and gravity can do to fences and stone walls. I sat in my studio and reflected upon this. People assume they're always going to have an internet connection or electricity when all it takes to take it all away is a singular and humble act of the gods. I've always hated assuming that we must always be connected, so I consider myself fortunate aobut possessing a philosophy that gives me a slight distaste for the electric and a preference for the mechanical and analogical. This way even without electricity I could still read books by candlelight, use my pens to write and draw, play my accordion or even type on my typewriter! These weather events humble us, inviting us to remember that we aren't so disconnected from the whims of nature, but what have we learned?
2024-08-05 (☽): PO box
2024-07-22 (☽): The extravagant sale of the synthesizer
Ah, yes, that's romance.
2024-07-21 (☉): My new instrument / A visit to the local temple
It wasn't in my plans for the day but on the way to buy the accordion I visited the Baha'i temple of South America located in Santiago, Chile. There's one of these temples in each continent, but we got the newest and ugliest one, of course. In my opinion it looks similar to a ball of crumpled paper. Well, whatever; how could I say no to the beautiful landscape around the building, high up on the base of the Andes mountains? Learning more about this universalist religion was pretty nice too, although it was superficial, obviously. There were a lot of people! ...but probably no actual Baha'is.
2024-07-14 (☉): Typewriter / John Titor
I always wanted a manual typewriter, but not to write without distractions or to collect them or anything; I wanted one because they're complex machines that don't require electricity. The way it works inspires awe; it's fourteen thousand times better than a boring old computer, and, despite being 80 years old, it will still work in 80 more years... to think smartphones can barely withstand a single day without charging and once you drop them or look at them wrong they break into a trillion pieces.
Yesterday morning I finished the book John Titor: A Time Traveler's Tale (2003). It was rather difficult to find a copy until just a while ago because it's been out of circulation forever, but it was finally uploaded to the Internet Archive back in February and now everyone can read it as it was published. It's a compilation edited and annotated by John Titor's mother of John Titor's forum messages. His mother's comments are few and far between, but they offer a lot of useful context to fill some gaps in Titor's story. For example, she tells us that John:
- Arrived to 1998 (not 2000-1) with the IBM 5100 to spend time and stay with his family until his departure;
- Was so terrible communicating with people and understanding context that one time he spent a while talking to a telemarketer on the phone before noticing that he only wanted to sell him something, not make friends;
- Cried strepitously the first time he visited a supermarket with them;
- Might have had an additional secret agenda for coming to the 70s and then 1998-2001 to reveal himself besides recovering an IBM 5100 or spending time with his family and that she was worried because John wasn't telling her.
Anyways, it was an easy and entertaining read that, on second thought, becomes kinda funny if you imagine John Titor to look like Suzuha from Steins;Gate. It's essential reading for any internet lore aficionados. I leave you with a quote from John:
"Perhaps I should let you all in on a little secret. No one likes you in the future. This time period is looked at as being full of lazy, self-centered, civically ignorant sheep. Perhaps you should be less concerned about me and more concerned about that."
2024-07-11 (♃): My north is the south
2024-07-10 (☿): A new chapter of my character development arc
2024-07-05 (♀): Happy new Attic year / Selling my computer
I think I'm gonna sell my desktop computer and start using the internet less. Most of my time online is a waste, and there's almost nothing new to see on the net, so why do I still spend so much time in front of the computer when I could be reading books or drawing? My monitor is an energy vampire. I'm not gonna abandon my site, of course. In fact, whenever I do decide to go online, it's gonna be to update my site. And for that I don't need a big machine that nails me in place. Well, such is the plan, at least. It's gonna be a gradual thing, but once this thing leaves my room, it's over.
2024-07-04 (♃): The future of digital art
Digital art is endangered, en route to extinction, because of AI art generators. As these become more powerful and the distinction between real pieces and generated ones turns into a murky matter, any digital pieces will become suspect of having been generated. This is already happening. There's always been people who've discredited digital art as fake. But the fact that it can now be generated by a machine grants to any person who values authenticity in art and, most importantly, its humanity, a valid reason to view future digital art with suspicion. More on this later. "But cid, we have robots with mechanical arms that can paint! If you make them paint generated art, this also casts doubt onto traditional art". Sure, but is it really cheaper and easier to make fake paintings using expensive custom-built robots than to generate thousands of jpgs at the press of a button? I doubt it, and that's why I believe digital art will lose a lot of prestige in the coming years.
Sadly this means that legit artists who happen to make digital pieces will have difficult times ahead. I mentioned above that people who value authenticity and humanity in art will suspect digital art, but the majority of people who are against AI art antagonize it for more "worldly" reasons such as loss of artistic jobs and copyright issues (they are NOT luddites). These actively and ferociously attack artists whom they believe are using generative techniques in their work by cancelling them and sending them threats, etc. Now you know that looking like AI is not the same as being made by AI, so they make mistakes in their attacks, too... such is the paranoia and fear. The worst thing about this is that since their behavior is so similar to cancel culture, everyone against it will just accept the end of human art as a middle finger to those darned artists and "luddites". Thus nobody wins.
The situation is sad and I can't offer a solution. Just go traditional? That won't work for a lot of people. I wish technology didn't exist only to substitute and alienate mankind, but I guess that's just its nature. In the end, and maybe this is a little edgy, as the legitimacy of digital art is fought over while under the siege of machines and stupid people, the traditional artist, armed with pens and brushes, will still make art and have the peace of mind that nobody, except maybe the craziest among us, will ever question its authencity.
Feel free to tell me how wrong I am.
2024-07-02 (♂): Children on the internet
My real life job involves interacting with children, and I understand their jokes, concerns and fears (perhaps I'll talk more about that in a future post), but it's odd to have to share spaces with them online, you know. It depends on the person, but we tend to be rather foolishly intimate online, and that's why there's so much abuse. I wonder what's my role here. Eventually we'll get bored of this stupid thing that the internet ended up being and we'll have to pass the baton to the young kids. In the meantime, do we just ignore them? Do we pretend they don't exist? It's like we treat them like the plague.
2024-06-14 (♀): I like early English
2024-06-13 (♃): What a waste
2024-05-13 (☽): More options in hora.c and attic.c
echo $(attic -a)$(hora -d)
to get
Ol.700.3 Tha. 7☽ 16♄
,
that is, right now it's the 16th planetary hour on the 7th of Thargelion,
where the hour ruler is Saturn and the day ruler is the Moon (because it's
Monday, of course). Just one alias
and, voilá,
I have an easy and conventient way to get the date and time. One thing to
keep in mind is that planetary hours begin at sunrise while days in the
Attic calendar begin at sunset (the 13th planetary hour), and that's fine.
For most people the day ends around sunset, so it makes sense for the day
counter to change then. On the other hand, the day clearly starts at
sunrise for most people, so it also makes sense for the first hour to be
at sunrise.
2024-05-12 (☉): Talking animals / C in Windows
It just so happened that I had to compile my hora.c program on Windows. Because gcc is so heavy, I got tcc as usual and successfully compiled the program on Windows XP (except that cmd.exe doesn't support Unicode; what the hell?). Anyways, when I tried the same thing on Windows 7 and 10, the program compiled but computations failed and therefore the output was meaningless. I determined that the culprit (?) was the function
double adjust_to_range(double value, double l_limit, double r_limit) {
if (value >= r_limit)
return value - r_limit;
else if (value < l_limit)
return value + r_limit;
return value;
}
that adjusts value to the interval [l_limit, r_limit)
and that I use multiple times. For example:
sunrise = adjust_to_range(sunrise + time_zone, 0,24);
For some reason this was setting sunrise to 0 no matter its
original value. However, if I write the code like this:
sunrise += time_zone;
sunrise = adjust_to_range(sunrise, 0, 24);
then sunrise is adjusted to the interval [0,24), as expected.
What, does tcc on Windows 7 and up not support evaluating
expressions inside function arguments? Was I accidentally shooting myself
on the foot with unexpected undefined behavior? No... this code
was working on XP and Linux with the same compiler, so what's the
issue? Well, after uncompressing 1.5GB worth of mingw-w64, I managed
to compile it with gcc on Windows 7, so the issue had to be tcc. Or was it?
I remembered that to compile my program on XP, I must have used the 32 bit
version of tcc there, so I used it on 7 and, I'll be damned, the function
actually does what it's supposed to! 64 bit tcc on Windows is buggy! How
esoteric...
To all my secret enemies who desire my downfall: you'll have to try harder than that.
2024-04-28 (☉): Look at the sky
Anyway, the most interesting thing about astrology is not even that. As the good ancient art that it is, it obviously goes beyond that. But then it's simple: the symbolism. Astrology gives everything a meaning. Every part of the sky and every planet means something. It relates everything to our experiences. So, it doesn't only make you conscious of what you can see above but it also gives meaning and a reason to be to what would be just big floating space rocks otherwise. And not only that! Because planets move around the sky and their configurations are always different, every moment is distinct and special, every moment is meaningful! How romantic is that?
It's not like anyone's ever surprised or even pretends to care when I tell them "Oh, there's Venus; oh, there's Jupiter, the big guy!" What, did you already know that? Are you that used to the sky? Don't give me that crap. Go look at the sky NOW!
2024-04-27 (♄): Netscape in Spanish, part 2 / Making progress on my new animation
Anyway, I'm about to finish my next flash movie featuring the retired magical girl Kuon (pictured). It's just a matter of polishing the animation to make it look nicer, and add backgrounds and sound. For inspiration I downloaded the first season of Hidamari Sketch and watched a few episodes for background references. I had forgotten how sublime this show was. As much of a pleasure to the senses and the heart as the first time I watched it. They don't make them like they used to.
2024-04-22 (☽): Netscape in Spanish
For a long time I searched the vast landscapes of the net in vain, hoping to find at least one file. No results. But then I found DiscMaster, a search engine that looks for files deep in the vaults of the Internet Archive, in particular inside old CD images (think shareware discs). Armed with newly found hope, I looked up
N32E404.EXE
(the filename
of the Netscape 4.04 installer) and was presented with a list of results.
It had found the file in multiple discs with names in English, German
and Japanese. Obviously, I thought, the exact file I wanted wouldn't
be in any of them. Death! But I pushed on, and never losing faith, I
clicked on the disc titled DOKAN 6. I noticed once I saw the cover
that it was the companion disc to a Spanish anime magazine from back in the
day (1998 or so), so I downloaded the N32E404.EXE
within
and... YES! It really was Netscape 4.04 in
Spanish! I almost cried (not really)... I had really thought this version
of the browser in my language was lost in time. I spent an entire
afternoon looking through these anime discs, finding even more
versions of Netscape in Spanish (enough to start
my own collection),
but ultimately I was enchanted by all the low resolution videos, photos and
music of anime shows of the time.
Anyway, that was my humble archeological adventure. Who would've thought that I would find the files I wanted in an old anime mag? I'm thankful not only to the authors of the magazine for (unknowingly) salvaging these rare files, but also to all the people who rip discs like these and upload them to the Internet Archive for losers with too much free time for their own good like me to find. Who knows, maybe someday I'll even find Netscape 3 in Spanish. Tempus edax rerum... not this time, I guess.
2024-04-15 (☽): Navigator, explorer
2024-04-10 (☿): Intensifiers / Heraldry / Manifesto
I've been reading a lot about heraldry lately. The strange language that's used to describe the shields is so unique and colorful; I'm learning it. I don't want to make arms for myself —I'm not that self-centered (I said, on a site called cidoku.net)—, but I think it'd be nice to design one for the fictional town of Shinano, where all my characters live, to give it a bit more flavor. Heraldry is an amazing artform. I commend all heralds everywhere.
Is it time to write my own unhinged and schizophrenic web design manifesto? Will there be a cidoku.net Manual of Style where I tell you that Javascript is harmful but Flash rules, that we should all go back to HTML 4, that nobody does accessibility right and that if your site doesn't open in Netscape, then it sucks? Come on, it'll be fun. Making sites is fun. Managing this site is fun.
2024-04-06 (♄): cidoku.net in Netscape 4 / Protoweb
<center>
and other tags and elements that style
content easily without CSS, so checkmate, "cascading" "style" "sheets"!
You're cordially invited to boot up your old Pentium and browse my site
using the best browsers known to man, Netscape 4.04 (and up) and Internet
Explorer 4 (and up), so you may enjoy, well, the same experience you
already have browsing this with a contemporary browser, but over plain HTTP
like GOD intended! This is all possible because it's not a very complicated
site, you know! Heh.
Speaking of sites that work on your
2024-04-05 (♀): e-Christians / Noble titles
Atheism has failed. The atheism advocated by my generation doesn't work because its fruits are disgusting and its myths akin to cancer. Be it Christianity or reconstructionist paganism or Shinto-Hellenism, it'd be good for the world to really believe again.
Would it be too dumb to save up some and get myself a nobiliary title from Sealand? I know they aren't real titles, but come on, it'd be fun! I wouldn't make you call me Count, but I doubt I'd dislike it...
2024-04-04 (♃): Button / Dolls / Hero girls
I want to learn to craft dolls. Rag dolls. Plush dolls. A pastime that doesn't depend on computers or electricity. How romantic it is to sew by hand during a nice afternoon, right? Yes! By hand! I'll never use a sewing machine, ever! I refuse! (though one of those vintage mechanical ones wouldn't be so bad, eh) I would make dolls of my characters and bring them to the physical world with a lot of love and care and I could even gift them. Wouldn't it be nice, if I ever have daughters, to make them their own dolls? A super dad! Oh, dreaming is free... Well, if I decide to do this you can expect a new section about the craft on my site. I don't even know where to start, though. I have the materials and everything but I guess refreshing my sewing skills is first on the list. They taught us to sew at kindergarten and I got some renewed practice a few years ago but I'll have to start anew. I know that this will unlock my ultimate power.
The doll image above is from Hirogaru Sky Precure. I finished it last Sunday and while I must admit that it's not my favorite season and that it had plenty of very bad episodes, it also had some of the best moments of the franchise, especially the final arc which is very reminiscent of another season I like very much. Regretfully, finishing this show means I'm (again) up to date with Precure and that I had to say goodbye to daily Precure episodes (it starts to feel like a ritual after a while). Sad! I even miss Sora a bit.
2024-03-31 (☉): Cidoku's Night Out (11th Anniversary Edition)
My warmest thanks to everyone who's sent me nice messages about my music throughout the years, and special thanks to everyone who decides to listen to this now.
2024-03-28 (♃): Paschal eclipses / Steins;Gate
A little chat I had yesterday on the Neocities comment section reminded me how much Steins;Gate has inspired me. I first learned of it because of the anime, much like almost everyone else. I didn't manage to watch all the episodes live, but right before the last episode aired I watched all 20-something episodes that were out at the moment (2011) and enjoyed the finale with everyone else. It was great! Then I read the visual novel as soon as the fan translation was out.
A certain part of the story tells you one of the reasons why Okabe started his Future Gadget Lab: because he wanted a group of friends. That's, in my opinion (so it's a fact), one of the most important messages of Steins;Gate and it affected me deeply. As I browsed the net and joined and formed chatgroups, Okabe's sentiment was always on the back of my mind. I wish I had a circle like the one Okabe built. These days I have a little chatgroup with five other guys whom I met online and deeply care about. However, I met them a long time ago and I think I forgot how to meet people online. Back then the web was smaller and cozier; is it still easy to connect with others? Can you still go and chat with randoms online and have something that could be called friendship?
Man, I'll always love Steins;Gate.
2024-03-27 (☿): A danger to productivity / Solar eclipse in North America / The small web / Technology sites
Or are the powerful secret enemies of cidoku.net finally revealing themselves?
The night of the Paschal full moon also had a quaint penumbral lunar eclipse. I don't think it could be seen from my location, so that's why I didn't mention it. Curious, huh? Anyway, it's the lunar eclipse that precedes the coming total solar eclipse that will occur over the United States in April 8. They're crazy for it over there! Due to the amazing celestial spectacle that comes with a solar eclipse because it brings the night for a few minutes, solar eclipses are seen in some traditions and cultures as bad omens, the worst of them all. A great time for bad magic, a bad time for good magic. Supersition or reality, a lot of people surely see the coming eclipse with caution. Will you go outside during the eclipse despite the danger, after all?
When I started my site in 2013 or 2014, I don't really remember, there was nothing like the "small web" or "retro web revival" or "minimal web" or anything of the sort... not that I can recall, anyway (was I not paying attention?). I just bought the domain and started sharing stuff out of whimsy. I suppose I'm part of the movement by association. All I'm saying is, don't go around calling yourself a retro web enthusiast if your site doesn't load in Internet Explorer or Netscape, at least not in front of me, that's all! People sure love putting labels on everything they do for validation, don't they? The Cidoku Network is the funny red* site with the white haired girl.
What I like about neocities is that not every site is a goddamn blog about linux and computers. Not every one. Ohh this is how I use computers. Who gives a crap dude. Computers suck.
*The color of cidoku.net is #ff2050, christened by Lord Capstasher as Cidoku Red.
2024-03-25 (☽): Paschal full moon
2024-03-23 (♄): Alternative beliefs / So-called original characters / Accordion
Websites that provide information about or promote spiritual beliefs not included in Global Religion, or other nonconventional or folkloric beliefs and practices, including but not limited to sites that promote or offer methods, means of instruction, or other resources to affect or influence real events through the use of spells, curses, magic powers, satanic, or supernatural beings.Will somebody think of the kids? Hilarious. No further commentary required.
If you really think about it, the term "OC" (original character) is completely superfluous. Every character is original, all of them! People call their characters "original" because they're original with respect to the characters from established series and franchises. What, does the metaphysical state of your characters depend on the ones that are on tv? A bit of an inferiority complex, don't you think? Even the most popular characters were "original" once. Just call your characters characters; that's what they are.
I want to sell all my worldly possessions and get an accordion. I fell in love with the instrument (for the 10th time) last year, when a girl got on the bus and played such sweet melodies... I normally hate musicians on public transport, but her sounds soothed my soul and made that day just a bit brighter.
2024-03-22 (♀): Too groundbreaking
2024-03-21 (♃): My old music
Well, the other day I got this comment on my guestbook in which an Anon asked me why I'd closed my Bandcamp and if it was because I wasn't planning to use it to share new stuff any more. I responded with my most self-deprecating bit yet: that my music sucked and that I wouldn't be sharing anything new, anyway, because I'd pretty much abandoned the hobby. That same night I discussed this with a friend and that was the first time I could come to terms with some of my worries. I concluded that I was being too hard on myself. It seems that it doesn't matter too much if my old music is mediocre. I can't manage to convince myself that my music matters to some, despite its failings, that they aren't just friends and family, and that they've clearly made me know. But what I really can't convince myself of is whether that's good. Were my simple, amateurish loops good enough to reach their hearts and make them smile? I remember that some guy once told me "I envy you because through your music you've reached philosophical immortality", ha ha. Surely that's not a reason not to improve, is it? I just did what I was able to do at the time. Well, none of that changes that I still feel stuck in a desert of mediocrity, and it's hard to escape if I don't make music. Maybe I will escape someday.
From a more technical point of view, my old music fails because it's badly mastered. Back then I knew almost nothing about good sound (and I only know marginally more now), so those tracks sound too saturated and compressed. What's worse is that FL Studio back then (2011) added a limiter on the master track set with gain over 100%... by default!!! Simple compositions were one thing, but how was I to know that my tracks were that badly mastered not just because I was a neophyte but also because FL Studio itself was sabotaging me? All because of the loudness wars too. Frustrating; too frustrating!! And I only learned about that years after I'd shared it all publicly. Well, at least I'm calm in knowing that half of that is not my own fault and, besides, not all is lost: it's just a matter of opening those old projects, moving some knobs here and there, fix them and share the definitive corrected versions, right? But here's the thing: is it worth the effort? Can I really move forward like this? Does anyone really care? You know what, maybe going back and fixing my old music is precisely what I need to find some closure, be proud of what I've done, and start anew. Maybe it's worth it to do it for myself.
2024-03-18 (☽): Actionscript, superheroes and the romance of mathematics
In the meantime, it seems I fell in love with mathematics again. I've been reading quite a few articles about set theory and logic lately, the loves of my life. Now that I think about it, I have never published anything about math on the site, even though I spent many years doing nothing but it. I guess I just haven't had anything to add to the conversation; maybe someday? I always say that math is like an abusive girlfriend that hits you and throws plates at you, but you love her so much still... Or maybe math is like a cat, nice and elegant, but moody and scratchy. Not the best analogies, I know. Point is, math hurts, but when you finally understand the mystery and make it yours... that's when it all becomes worth it. And there are a lot of mysteries to uncover. In fact, we will never run out of mysteries. That makes math quite the romantic endeavor.
2024-03-11 (☽): Freemasons
It's alaways a funny story to tell how the Nazi Party was founded by Hitler from the Thule Society as its political wing (he basically coopted it), and the society started as the Munich lodge of the Germanenorder, an occultist society that followed a certain German ethnonationalist ideology and that had an internal hierarchy based on that of the freemasons.
On the other hand, both Gerald Gardner and L. Ron Hubbard, the founders of Wicca and Scientology respectively, were influenced by Aleister Crowley or met him personally. Crowley, just in case you've never heard of him, was probably the most important occultist of the 20th century and is influential to this day (regretfully, I must admit). A mason (among other things), of course, he was the founder of the neopagan magical religion of Thelema and of the occultist society Ordo Templi Orientis. It's intimately related to Freemasonry.
Although Gardner, the witch, was a straight-up mason, I think it's Crowley who connects him and Wicca to Hubbard and Scientology. Legend tells that Hubbard learned of Crowley's writings and philosophy through Jack Parsons, the famous rocket engineer and occultist. Parsons was an avid practitioner of Thelema and was a member of Ordo Templi Orientis. Hubbard and Parsons became good friends in the 40s and shared women and practiced sex magic* together. A few years later Hubbard would give a series of talks in which he connected many of Scientology's beliefs with the magical practices of Crowley.
So there you have it.
*I'm not spelling it "magick", screw you!
2024-03-10 (☉): Astrology game
2024-03-07 (♃): No more music / My game on Newgrounds
My game Shirogami's Maze Pocket got 18th place (out of 30) in the best games of February list on Newgrounds. I never uploaded it expecting it to win a prize or anything, but it did better than a lot of other stuff. Some guy popular there played all the games nominated to best of the month and he played mine last. After 8 hours of playing games. I couldn't stand watching him. I cringed. I took the game down.
2024-03-06 (☿): Point of view
Well then, if helio- and geocentrism are really equivalent observational models, could someone go further beyond and say that the flat Earth model is equivalent to the usual model of the universe? I don't think it can be done for a few reasons (geometric and observational), but imagine if it could: wouldn't it end all internet debates forever, end wars and famine and bring world peace, except among those who believe the Earth is shaped like a dinosaur?
2024-03-05 (♂): Voice troubles / A new reason to wait for Sunday
I watched all five episodes of Wonderful Precure so I'm up to date with it now. It's such a fun one! I love Iroha and Komugi. Komugi is so small and dumb... Anyway, it's been a while since I followed Precure weekly. It gives me a good reason to wait for Sundays. In what feels like an eternity ago now, Space Brothers was my reason to get up every Sunday. If everything goes as it should, I might just follow the new Super Sentai weekly as well; I enjoyed the premiere.
2024-03-02 (♄): Webrings
2024-03-01 (♀): Angela / Precure All Stars F
I watched Precure All Stars F. Gods, what a beauty of a movie. The finest and classiest celebration of Precure that could've been done for an anniversary of the franchise. The film relies on nostalgia for a lot of scenes, but I felt it was done respectfully and without outright pandering (yes, I'm biased, leave me alone). The villain is incredible and really feels like a threat! Hardly anything's more enjoyable than this. The movie is undeniable proof that Precure is the best thing that exists and that we can forgive the industrial revolution at least for an hour or two. In conclusion, ten out of five stars and a masterpiece. A contemporary classic that will be studied in universities everywhere for centuries.
2024-02-29 (♃): Leap day / New job / The guestbook is worth it / My game on Newgrounds' front page
Today was my first day at my new job. Managing my free time will be a big challenge now, but I'll finally have more money to waste- I mean, to help at home with.
Many times I have thought about closing my guestbook because of all the spam it attracts, but every once in a while I get such nice messages, like today, that they make everything worth it.
I just noticed that my game Shirogami's Maze Pocket got frontpaged on Newgrounds. Just like that, out of nowhere. I'm not sure how I should feel about it, but an award is an award. It's my first Newgrounds award.