The scandal sheets will suggest I perform animal sacrifice, which is true, as in our neck of the woods it's legal to keep a pet python, which I do. I buy live mice for it about every nine days on average.
However scandal sheets are all about twisting words, which is what some breeds of wordsmith pride themselves for doing. I get it, I do it too sometimes. Like when I dare to say "four basis vectors" for the quadrays when clearly the other is the linear combination of the other three, allowing for a negation operator (I take it away).
As I head to the mouse store, whenever the weather next looks propitious, I'm gonna pick one of the new food carts next to Tom's for a sample transaction. I know I won't get to use crypto, but I always pretend that's what I'm using, when I pass over bills or use bank accounts. Electrical impulses signal an increment over here with an offsetting decrement over there. That's transactions for ya, call it money if you want to (there's no guarantee others will agree with your assessment).
Tom's if you don't know is a local neighborhood diner, classically of Greek heritage as many diners are, a stereotype that resonates for a reason. I've been to Tom's countless times and hope to keep going. Closer to the mouse store (pet shop, lotsa herps (i.e. reptiles)) is Sckavones, reminiscent of Tom's but its own thing. So that's how to spell Sckavones... I might've goofed up in some earlier blog posts. I permit myself typos fixes of that kind, usually with an uptick in the time signature (as if we had omni-version control).
The live mice do not experience worry or terror as they have no experience with predatory animals. Pythons are pros and constrict their prey very quickly, leaving just enough time for a short flash-through, one might imagine, of what has been a brief life. Onward! If you think in those terms.
The python is named Barry and has been of net benefit to our family. In my Python teaching days (meaning the computer language), especially if my audience was kids, I might get Barry out of his terrarium and share him over Zoom. As it is, I rarely handle him these days. Maybe I should more often. He's a ball python, meaning he likes to ball up and sleep his life away, not uncharacteristic of reptiles, especially if bred to expect room service.
As for what I've been up to with School of Tomorrow, you may remember (if you try to follow) a recent confession about my lack of camera-control savvy. We're talking "virtual camera" inside a "virtual world" made with ray tracing. I've been pressing forward in my trainings to get more experience working out with that feature, as "orientation" (in the OODA sense) is one of my themes. It'd pay off to be less dorky maybe?
We study General Systems Theory a lot (Systematics some call it -- I tend to say GST) which is about patterns, such as the dwindling supply of experienced studio sound engineers in LA owing to wannabe and even successful artists gravitating to the home studio model. No one needs to spend big bucks to cut a record anymore, which means giving up a level of quality control developed over time by people with taste and skills. The LA music scene wasn't primo for no reason.
I mentioned seeing a similar pattern around esoteric forms of Buddhism, such as we find represented here in the "Buddhist Ghetto" (a term of endearment for our eclectic neighborhood). Not to be specific to any one temple, we can all relate to going from crowds in a break-the-door-down frenzy to join up, be a member, to a situation of almost no wannabe converts, a total dry-up of "minions" (not to be disrespectful; any in-group needs noobs, beginners, apprentices, people in the pipeline).
In other words: torch-passing. The Olympics gives us the relay race. A great metaphor. Then there's "dropping the baton" which is akin to torch-dropping (stereotypically a no-no, as it'd go out, and the whole point is to maintain at least the illusion of continuity).
But let's zoom out even more and further apply our Buddhist mindset: it's not necessarily a great tragedy that we have such a thing as "fads" during which people all try something out, experiment, and then move on, lessons learned. "Fads are great!" I can hear Tony the Tiger telling us on TV.
