Longplayer Trust:
And by long, I mean long, as in a musical composition able to last an entire millennium. Longplayer has created exactly that, with a composition that will last through the entire 2xxx's.  From their overview on longplayer.org: 

Accenture sued over website redesign so bad it Hertz:
Not my line, but I wish it was. Hat tip to The Register for the bon mot for their coverage of how badly Accenture performed on a website redesign for Hertz. 

The article quotes from the lawsuit Hertz filed, noting ignored specs, ignored standards, and ignored best practices. But let's face it, the best part of the article was the headline.

Bring Your Dice To Work Day:
The latest section of the dungeon crawl that I am guest DM-ing in our weekly Wednesday lunch hour D&D session has a lot for the players to encounter:

• an NPC to join the group
  
• an ambush
  
• some grey ooze action
  
• a mass grave
  
• a couple more piercers and another mimic, 
  
• and a handful of skeletons.

That's probably at least two hours worth of gaming if the players decide to explore everything. 

New words:

pro·pin·qui·ty
[prəˈpiNGkwədē]
NOUN

1. formal
   the state of being close to someone or something; proximity.
   "he kept his distance as though afraid propinquity might lead him into temptation"
   synonyms:
   proximity · closeness · nearness · adjacency · contiguity ·
   [more]

grav·id
[ˈɡravəd]
ADJECTIVE

1. technical
   pregnant; carrying eggs or young.
   synonyms:
   expecting a baby · having a baby · with a baby on the way
2. full of meaning or a specified quality.
   "the scene is gravid with unease"

fe·cund
ADJECTIVE

1. producing or capable of producing an abundance of offspring or new growth; fertile.
   "a lush and fecund garden"

lim·i·nal
[ˈlimənl]
ADJECTIVE
technical

1. relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.
2. occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.

Krav Ma·ga
[ˌkräv məˈɡä]
NOUN

1. a form of self-defense and physical training, first developed by the Israeli army in the 1940s, based on the use of reflexive responses to threatening situations.

ru·gose
[ˈro͞oˌɡōs]
ADJECTIVE
biology

1. wrinkled; corrugated.​​

New beers:
It was a quiet week on the beer front with only one entry. Buzzsaw Mead from Tamarack Jack's was good, but not quite as good as their Sawyer Hopped Mead that I had last week. (3.5 / 5)

FOMO Defined in 1951:

Alan Watts published "The Wisdom of Insecurity" and defined what we crudely call FOMO or Fear of Missing Out:

VAR Drama:
The video replay helped Spurs advance to the Champions League semi-final against Ajax. Plus the game had the four fastest goals in Champions League history at 11 minutes, so plenty of workday interruptions from my chirping phone. 

On space exploration:
I'm reading "The Future of Humanity" by Michio Kaku. I have barely got past the history of human space programs and there are already three quotes of note.

New beers:
Quite a few new beers this week, what with the days off. First, the Extra Special Monk from Blind Enthusiasm (3.5 / 5). Second, the Kettle Sour #1 from Blindman which I thought was going to be my highlight this week (3.75 / 5). However, I had a couple Grande Prairie brews this weekend that topped the Blindman offering. The Ale Spruced Up from Grain Bin was really refreshing (3.75 / 5), and the best of the week was the Sawyer Hopped Mead from Tamarack Jack (4.0 / 5). It is truly amazing what creative drinks can start from a base of water, barley, yeast, and hops.

People I know. In a commercial:
ATB has a series of 90 second commercials that highlight how they helped a family, an individual, or a business in Alberta. They are a decent enough series that I didn't give much thought to until I saw this one featuring a family I know from the taekwondo and jiujitsu crowd at Elite, and featured the ATB Arts & Culture Branch located in the CKUA building. That was enough for me take the whole series more seriously. 

Late-Stage Capitalism:
Two more interesting pieces this week on the ails of capitalism. The first was from a 60 Minutes interview with hedge-fund billionaire Ray Dalio. The first quote is more optimistic or at least more favourable for capitalism than many others of late.

​Capitalism needs to be reformed. It doesn't need to be abandoned.  (12' 23")

The second quote specifically regarding American capitalism is much less optimistic, and more in line with other sentiments.

That's pretty heady stuff coming from a hedge-fund manager worth $18 billion. 

The other source of negative sentiment towards capitalism was from the preface to the latest edition of Lapham's Quarterly. This issue is focused on Trade. The quarterly magazine is usually riddled with great articles, but typically my favorite part is Lewis Lapham's preface, and that was the case again in this issue. 

Creativity as a Goal, not just as a way to make money:
There is more value to creativity and talent than just padding ones wallet. Or at least that is one of the central theses from the Freakonomics series on Creativity. The second part of the series featured some wonderful quotes from Wynton Marsalis. The best were two pieces of solid advice he received from his father (22' 50" and 25' 55"):

In other words, challenge those you make generalized statements, and experience the world for yourself before you decide what you like and don't like. 

Stellar writing about a Black Hole:
Lots was said and tweeted about the composite photographic image released this week of the black hole. The best summary I read of the significance of the event was in The Atlantic by Marina Koren. The article, titled "An Extraordinary Image of the Black Hole at a Galaxy’s Heart" was filled with lots of facts - like the fact that this particular black hole at its center has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the sun - but it was extremely readable and it was easy to follow. Plus, checking out her Twitter profile revealed a great quote:

New words:
syn·dic
[ˈsindik]
NOUN

1. a government official in various countries.
2. (in the UK) a business agent of certain universities and corporations.

bark·en·tine
[ˈbärkənˌtēn]
NOUN

1. a sailing ship similar to a bark but square-rigged only on the foremast.

(from Wikipedia: A barquentine or schooner barque (alternatively "barkentine" or "schooner bark") is a sailing vessel with three or more masts; with a square rigged foremast and fore-and-aft rigged main, mizzen and any other masts.)

venerable (a word I had thought just meant "old")
ven·er·a·ble
ADJECTIVE

1. accorded a great deal of respect, especially because of age, wisdom, or character.
   "a venerable statesman"
   synonyms:
   respected · venerated · revered · reverenced · worshipped · honored · esteemed · hallowed · august · distinguished · acclaimed · celebrated · lionized · renowned ·
   [more]

cf. (as in the notation used in literary publications)
[ˌsēˈef]
ABBREVIATION

1. compare with (used to refer a reader to another written work or another part of the same written work).

ORIGIN
from Latin confer ‘compare’.

Kickstarters and fundraising for NFPs:
I have been gung-ho into role-playing games lately, and I backed four successful Kickstarter campaigns in the last month - Witch+Craft, Snowhaven, Welcome to Tikor, and Humblewood. Humblewood was by far the most successful, raising just over $1,000,000 USD. Being immersed in Kickstarter project updates for the last several weeks, I am intrigued by the direct-to-supporter model and level of engagement in a Kickstarter. If I have a few bucks to spare but cannot decide between a traditional fundraising campaign for a foundation or not-for-profit ("Call in now and have your credit card handy!") and a cool project where I will help unlock new content and will be able to engage with the creators, I can't see any reason to send my limited money to a traditional campaign. 

Not-for-profits need to figure this out if they want to engage with potential supporters. A small company selling an add-on for an RPG can raise a million bucks, and that pile o' cash is cash and every other similar pile o' cash is money that the NFPs will never have access to if they maintain a dial-for-dollars mindset. 

New beers this week:
The current tally is now up to 542 unique beers with the two additions this week. First, another new beer at Biera. The BRO is a brown ale, and I liked it more than most browns. Maybe a bit too much burnt nib taste, but it had a nice aroma and a great foamy head. (3.75 / 5)  The only other new beer was the Hard Day IPA from Red Truck Beer. It had a lot of citrus, but I was distracted and didn't pay much attention, so it might have been better than I rated it. (3.25 / 5)

Ron's Hockey Night in AHS:
Ron Faryna is a neighbor and a co-worker who has sat about 50 paces from me since May of last year. He came up with the idea of playing ball hockey as part of the AHS 10 year anniversary celebration, which in itself is a great idea. Then he was diagnosed with cancer, and the great people at AHS pulled together a super fun event. Here are a couple tweets from the event.

I'm not crying, you're crying. 

April Fool's:
​Luckily I wasn't bombarded by too many April Fool's jokes this year, but there are two items of note from April 1. First, this tweet sounds like a good idea, and likely foretells the future where drones dominate the sky. 

Second, the bear in the Bing wallpaper of the day looked eerily like he was breaking the fourth wall. His smile and the look in his eyes makes me shudder. The rest of the images this week happily were not of sentient bears.

On Writing:
Writing is hard. Steeling oneself against anticipated criticism or rejection is even harder. However, I am confident that however poor my writing abilities are, I won't make most of the egregious errors listed in this article by OnSpec magazine Editor Barb Galler-Smith in any writing I submit to be published. Some of the more egregious mistakes make you wonder:​

New music:
It seems I'm always behind watching any show, so no spoilers on Star Trek: Discovery, Critical Role, or the Chain of Acheron, please and thank you. Acoustic Tuesday is another on that list, but I am closer with AT than for most things I watch. AT is a weekly show about acoustic guitars and acoustic music, and it is something I really enjoy. Each week, Tony and Noah introduce at least one artist, and on AT #83 (from March 26 only! I'm not that far behind), the featured band was Mile Twelve, a five-piece bluegrass band. They have two albums, with their second album dropping just a few days ago. Check them out on a streaming service, or if you are in Calgary in August, they will playing at the Shady Grove Bluegrass Festival.​

Also out this week is Gloria, the latest from The Lumineers, a surprisingly upbeat song considering the lyrics. It starts out with:

and then ends with: 

Not exactly light stuff. 

Movie:
Hotel Artemis is 94 minutes of cinematic beauty. Just don't try to make sense of the plot. It seemed like a B movie with an A list cast, but I still recommend it. 

New Beers:
It is fruit beer season apparently, with two new brews this week. If these two are any indication, it will be a good year for fruit beers. First, Wizard's Revenge, a hazy IPA loaded with strawberry from New Level in Calgary (3.75 / 5). Next, two 250 mL glasses at Biera, including an English Ale with smoked peat (3.75 / 5) and an India Pale Lager (is that even a thing?) that was okay but not great. And finally, the latest find from Alley Kat, the Raspbeary Beret, full of bon mots and raspberry with a hearty serving of sour. Good stuff for sure. (4.0 / 5)