Bits and Pieces

• It is a stormy Sunday afternoon right now. Supertyphoon Karding is barrelling towards Luzon and we are currently on signal no. 4 I think. (The highest level is signal no. 5). This is coming roughly a day before the same day that Typhoon Ondoy devastated Metro Manila 13 years ago. This is the third supertyphoon to hit the country in a month, yet another indication of how the climate problems are intensifying.

• PH/Covid: Covid cases continue to plateau and maybe even rise a bit here in NCR, and the positivity rate is climbing. Coincidentally, Biden declared that the pandemic is over in the US.

• The World: Lots of happenings in geopolitics, with the UN General Assembly meeting this week. Malacanang initially claimed that our "esteemed" president Marcos Jr was the only one Biden chose to meet with on the sidelines, then quickly walked that back after being called out. Overshadowing all the speeches was Vladimir Putin declaring partial mobilization in Russia accompanied by not-so-thinly-veiled threats of using nuclear weapons. The announcement was met with international rebukes, protests inside Russia, and apparently a lot of people are trying to get out of Russia for some reason.

• I haven't had a good week; our household has been suffering a rash of cough and colds and as usual despite being the youngest person living here I'm actually the worst affected. The clogged nose and coughs started Tuesday evening and by Wednesday morning I was even running a small fever. Of course there was a bit of worry about Covid so I isolated in my room for a bit, but my temp went back down in a few hours, though it continued to fluctuate between 37.1 and 37.5 for a while. Feeling a bit better now, temps are good, but still some coughs and cold.

• The illness sapped my energy for most of the week, making it quite unproductive. Combined with the rains, it means I haven't even gotten my regular walks done for a few days now. I didn't even get any real sleep on the first night because of the clogged nose. I did take the opportunity to finish reading a book instead. Book review of Alloy of Law (Mistborn #4) here.

• On the blog: I wrote about A Lack of Fear

• Gaming: Not much this week actually. Only did one Magic Arena draft stream, will probably resume next week. Eternal grinding continues. Still playing SMT5 and Paradise Killer, though a bit less this week. Still trying to rank up in Street Fighter V, but this week didn't go well with overall record 30-36.

Some Links of Interest

• WORLD OF TOMORROW - YouTube: A 2016 Oscar-nominated animated short film about the future

• Institute of Network Cultures | Christopher Kelty: The Internet We Could Have Had:

  "The internet we do have, however, is figured much differently. It is figured as a tool of political domination. It is the apotheosis of the forms of domination secretly hidden inside the stories of progress and liberation..." " It is capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and environmental destruction all rolled into one hideous hydra whose heads are Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, Cook, with Musk and Thiel at the ass end."

• The Enduring Allure of Choose Your Own Adventure Books | The New Yorker: A long retrospective on the history and legacy of CYOA books

Visit the Links page for more links of interest.

And some interesting stuff from Twitter:

• a thread about the purpose of government: enforcing fairness or hierarchy?
• a thread about misconceptions re:DLC in game development
• a thread about how rallies actually serve an incredibly important purpose in fascist movements, and we’d be wise not to write them off as a sideshow that can be ignored

This coming week:

The coming week is loaded for me:

• A bunch of medical errands to do, the usual end of month stuff, etc.
• There's also a couple of quiz nights scheduled this week; not sure if trivia team will attend both.
• Next weekend I hope to participate in Ludum Dare 51.
• There's an limited open on Magic Arena on the weekend as well, but I'll probably skip because my in-game currency resources are low and I might not have time with Ludum Dare, but we'll see if I once again impulsively decide to join.
• Next Saturday is also the first of October, and in October I want to participate in some events like Inktober and Hacktoberfest, we'll see how that goes!